Echoes True and False
by Lesera128
Summary: D.C. Halloween 2007. In a moment of weakness, Brennan makes a mistake and finally contravenes Booth's free will, breaking the spell that has kept him from remembering his life as Angel. He regains his memories and confronts Brennan, forcing them to deal with the fallout of her actions. Bones/Angel crossover. AU. Sequel to stories like "Toe to Toe"-"The Price to Be Paid." Complete.
1. Pt I: A Canonical Precursor of Sorts

**Echoes True and False**

**By:** Lesera128 & dharmamonkey

**Rated: **M

**Disclaimer: **Here we posit our normal rigmarole. No, we don't own anything from _Bones _or _Angel... _or anything else. Yes, we're wreaking what havoc we can with these characters that we don't own to create an awesome story. But, since it's only for the purposes of creative enjoyment and amusing distraction, we think we're okay. Are there any other questions? No? ::blinks:: Good. Then moving on―

**Summary: **Brennan can't help herself and contravenes Booth's free will, breaking the spell that has kept him from remembering his life as Angel. He regains his memories and confronts Brennan about her role in what's happened to him. Bones/Angel crossover. Very, very AU. Sequel to "Toe to Toe," "Barging In," "Making Him Beg," "Comfort on the Edge of Reason," "The After Party" and "The Price to Be Paid."

**Logistical Notes: **Just as a reminder, for those who are familiar with Whedon-verse, this story assumes the events through the end of Angel's series finale ("Not Fade Away") and the comic-book "Angel: After the Fall" are canon. It ignores all other stories in the Angel chronology, including the BTVS Season 8 in comics, as well as the Twilight story arc. For those familiar with _Bones_, this story is during season three and picks up at the end of episode 3x05 - "The Mummy in the Maze." Readers should note that events follow canon only until that point. (A teeny-weeny "duh-moment," we know, but we had to say it lest someone says something, but they probably will anyway, so we'll just stop now...)

**A/N: **Welcome to this, the seventh (lucky #7, as Booth would say) story in Dharmasera's Angel/Bones crossover series.

We, the ladies of Dharmasera, Inc. have been absolutely thrilled with the response to this series. Like another of our recent collaborations, "The Inquisitor," we knew when we started this series that it might not appeal to everyone. Many of our regular readers have told us they don't really like crossovers, and so we knew we had a challenge ahead of us, especially taking the liberties we did with Brennan to fit her into the mystical Whedonverse so that we could pair her up with Angelus. Well, just as we converted a lot of you who didn't like historical AU when we gave you "Inquisitor," we seemed to win over a lot of skeptics with this crossover. The response this Angel(us)/Brennan series has received has truly surpassed our expectations, and we're glad that everyone is enjoying it. We are grateful for your support and continued interest in this crazy story. (After 250,000+ words, we can't really call it a "little story" anymore.)

Having taken you through the tumultuous 150 year-long story of an English witch and her sexy Irish vampire lover, we've now arrived at a place you Bones fans will recognize: early Season 3. So fasten your seatbelts, friends, because what we have for you in this seventh installment is going to take you on a hell of an emotional ride and blow your collective minds.

**UNF Alert: **What can we tell you? You know who we are, and the kinds of tales we tell. This story will contain some serious unfness as it moves along. That's what you wanted, right? Well, if not, then we ask that you take a raincheck and find something else to read. For the rest of you, stay tuned. Some extremely unf stuff is coming up. Just not in this chapter. First, we have to set the mood, you know? Light some candles, turn on some U2, plump the pillows, and turn down the sheets before we can get to business? It's all in the set-up, baby! But, as ever, we promise, the good stuff is coming, and it'll definitely prove worth the wait when it does, so just consider this another IOU on which we will eventually make good...again and again and...again.

* * *

**Part I: A Canonical Precursor of Sorts**

* * *

The feelings of odd familiarity were nothing new to Booth.

He lived each day guided by his gut and his intuition, the way he always had, and so when he'd be driving around town or sitting in a diner, and a wave of déjà vu washed over him, he thought nothing of it. He didn't really believe in coincidences. Everything happens for a reason, he believed, even if the reasons why things happen aren't immediately apparent. There were a lot of things about the world that Booth didn't understand, but he didn't let that lack of understanding wear him down. He'd always been aware of it, but in a way, it fascinated him, so he never felt too bothered or frustrated by his ongnoing struggle to make sense of it. It was enough for him to know that there was a cosmic interconnection between things, a resonance as it were.

For as long as he could remember, he'd always felt that _something_ was there with him. Its presence in his heart and mind had always been, as far as he could tell, one of his earliest memories. As he'd gotten older, he'd realized that the unnamed ball of feelings that he'd always felt couldn't be named, but could be better described. He'd felt that resonance, humming away, deep inside of him, and even when odd or puzzling or senseless things happened around him, he'd felt that resonance murmuring in the back of his mind, and it had always given him a certain comfort.

He'd always imagined that faint hum he heard was the sound of his guardian angel's wings, beating in the background of his mind as he made his way through the world. It was a crazy world, and that quiet hum reminded him that the path he walked was illuminated by divine providence, even if he didn't know where he was going until his heel hit the ground. God works in mysterious ways, Booth would always would remind himself. It was the way of things, and it was with this a stubborn belief in such knowledge—that there was some kind of unseen hand at work behind the scenes—that he somehow managed to get through the toughest, most impossible Army missions and, later, the most hopelessly grim FBI cases. If it was all meaningless randomness, he reasoned, then the worst of his FBI cases—the pedophile serial killers, the domestic murder-suicides, the Salvadoran gang hits on a drug debtor's little sister—would have long since driven him to despair. But somehow, while the suffering of innocent people couldn't be neatly explained or justified, the notion that there was some sort of organizing intelligence in the cosmos gave Booth comfort in knowing that the fight he was fighting had some meaning in the bigger scheme of things.

Knowing there was a purpose behind the things that happened to him and around him gave Booth the inner strength he needed to endure the suffering the world threw down.

He remembered laying in his bed at nights when he was a boy, listening to his father bellow at his mother, Edwin Booth's voice loud and wavering under the influence of a half of a bottle of Jim Beam that came through the thin walls of his bedroom like waves of sound that served to hurt him by their very existence. The younger Booth would squeeze his eyes shut, as if in doing so he could squeeze his ears shut, too, but it never worked. So he'd lay there on his tiny twin bunk bed, his small hands clenched tightly over his ears, trying to imagine that the thunks, thuds, and muffled crashes he heard from the next room were something else other than the sound of his mother's head or back being slammed against the opposite side of the wall. He'd lay there, muttering to himself, praying to the Virgin Mary—as his mother had taught him to do, just as she always had—that it would just stop so that he could go to sleep and not have to worry that maybe his father would come in the bedroom looking for _him _if his mother couldn't take the main brunt of his father's drunken rages to shield him as she normally did.

As he tried to focus his attention less on what was happening between his parents in his other room, and more on the sound of the blood roaring in his ears, he heard a voice murmur in the darkness. The voice was so faint, he wasn't even sure if it was a man's or woman's voice. But it sounded nice and reassuring and didn't hurt his ears like the other sounds did.

_It's okay, Seeley, _the voice said to him from some indeterminate place in the mostly dark room he shared with his little brother, Jared. He'd once had a night-light, but his father had broken it one afternoon when he'd thrown Booth against the wall, and it had never been replaced. At first, it had bothered him terribly, as he was somewhat afraid of the dark and the terrors that hid there. But on that first night when he'd been forced to go to sleep without his Phillies Liberty Bell night-light plugged in and shining brightly from where he could see it on the wall opposite of his bed, he'd found a different type of light to show him comfort. _You're a tough kid_, the voice whispered softly. _You're gonna be okay. Hang in there, Seeley. You'll get through this. Be strong, and you'll survive. It'll be okay. I promise. It's gonna be alright. It'll all be alright. _

Years later, he remembered laying again in the darkness, trying to focus his mind on anything but the misery around him. For two days and three nights, he'd slept on the cold concrete floor of a tiny, dank cell in Baghdad, the smell of stale sweat and urine hanging heavy in the air, his feet shattered and swollen so badly that his toes felt like they would pop like tiny balloons if anyone had touched them. He'd lay in the darkness, drifting in and out of consciousness, his misery interrupted only by the scraggly-bearded guard who came in every few hours to slap him awake and pour a cup of warm water down his throat before leaving again. When the guard had closed the door again, cloaking Booth once more in a shroud of darkness, he swallowed the hard lump in his throat and curled back into a fetal position and tried to focus on the only thing that gave him any comfort: the tiny voice in the back of his mind that murmured to him.

_Booth, you're going to be fine, _the voice had chanted at him, its pleading tone sounding more stubborn and insistent than reassuring as it had been when he was a little boy._ You're gonna be fine. You can make it, Booth. Come on! _

And the quiet voice inside of him was right. He _did _make it. Again and again, he'd endured every time he'd been in a bad place. Each time, it reinforced his faith in the organizing intelligence that held the cosmos together, and so when Booth found himself struck with the feeling of déjà vu and hearing the hum in the back of his mind, he drew comfort from it and soldiered on, no matter the circumstances.

It was that same curious sensation of déjà vu that had struck him the moment he'd open the door and walked into the lecture hall at American University. He'd stood in the doorway for a moment, sure that his heart had stopped while his belly tensed and undulated as if he were zooming over a speedbump. The yellow-skirted woman at the front of the room had a striking figure, with her long legs, curvy hips and pert, round breasts, but it was only as he walked closer and saw her square jaw and her eyes. She had incredible, soul-swallowing eyes of the palest blue, which were at once cool as ice and yet not cold at all. He felt immediately drawn into those eyes, the way he felt being invited into a home he'd be in a hundred times before. He'd never seen her face before, of course, but he'd sworn he'd seen her, somewhere, before. It wasn't just her beautifully-sculpted face, or the striking look in her pale eyes, though.

That quiet little hum he heard in the back of his mind began to thrum loudly the moment he'd opened the door to the lecture hall and had seen her face, and it whirred even louder when he heard her voice ring out across the room. It was unlike anything he'd ever experienced. Odd though it was, it was unmistakable, as if the universe itself were somehow calling out to him, resonating deep inside his chest the moment he laid eyes on her. _It can't be, _he'd told himself at the time. Her name—Temperance Brennan—was so unique, he knew he'd have remembered it had he actually met her before. If this woman wasn't familiar to him as someone from his past, that left only one option: she was destined to be part of his future.

"Do you believe in fate?" he'd asked her, the words tumbling off his tongue as he tried to contain a wide-eyed, face-splitting grin. At that moment, his whole chest oozed with warmth as he felt an overwhelming excitement rousing something deep inside of him he couldn't touch or name or explain as he waited with baited breath to see what her response would be..

"Absolutely not," Brennan had replied, a faint smile curving the edges of her slender lips as she gave a minute shake of her head to signal her answer in the negative. "Ludicrous."

He'd shrugged off the strange, light-headed, belly-flipping sensation of déjà vu and the loudly humming murmur in his ears, then used his usual wink and charming grin to enlist Brennan's commitment to help him with a cold case he'd been struggling to solve. A few days later, after he'd worked with her on the case and the two of them had begun to make some real progress on the case, she'd hauled off and slugged the prime suspect, and the U.S. Attorney in charge of the case had ordered him to fire her. Booth, not usually one for taking advice, decided to take her out for drinks, and after four or five tequila shots apiece, he'd told her she was fired. A few minutes later, his mind awash in Cuervo Gold, he'd found himself standing on the back stoop of his old pool bar, staring into Brennan's cool, gray-flecked blue eyes. He'd felt a limb-tingling energy pass through him as he'd stood there, their faces close enough that he could smell her shampoo and her breath on his chin, and after few more moments, he'd leaned in to kiss her. The moment their mouths came together, and he'd tasted her as their tongues glanced against one another, he swore he'd tasted her before. The taste, the feel of her...somehow...he _knew what that felt like_. And once he realized that, he was greedy for more. There was none of the first-kiss tentativeness—the strange, awkward, mushy way that two set of lips usually came together for the first time—and it was if he'd been kissing her for decades even though the whole thing lasted only a few seconds before she pulled away and stepped out into the rain with a husky laugh and a teasing smile on her face, leaving him wanting more. Always with her, from that very first moment, it was never enough.

She always left him wanting _more_.

As he watched her ride away in that cab, its tires hissing on the pavement as it drove away, he shook his head and dismissed the weird feeling that he'd known her before, seen her before, felt like this before, been in the position before of wanting more and watching sadly as she left him and went away.

_But no, _he told himself, shoving his hands in the pockets of his suit jacket as he tried to fight the feelings of sadness and regret that pooled up in him as he realized she was gone and wasn't coming back. _It can't be. _For a split second, he'd been tempted to follow her to see what might happen between them, but ultimately something had held him back. Instead of hailing a taxi cab and following her, he'd turned around, glanced up at the flickering "POOL" sign that lit the back of the bar. He'd blinked at it for a moment, but the familiar tingle in his fingertips that came before he burned off that restless energy behind a smooth, polished maple pool cue seemed curiously absent. Instead, he'd felt a strange sensation, an energy of some kind that pricked at the skin on his arms and neck like he was walking too close to an uninsulated high voltage power line. He'd opened and closed his hands into fists inside his pockets but shouldn't shake the weird prickly feeling. Booth had taken one last look at the flickering neon sign and began to walk down the street in the driving rain.

As he'd walked the fifteen long blocks back to his apartment, Booth's ears had been filled with the sound of the hissing rain and the _squish-squish _of his water-logged shoes. He'd passed by an old two-story brick warehouse, built sometime around the turn of the century, with tall casement windows which had been blacked out by the building's current occupant—a nightclub—and the same feeling of déjà vu fluttered in the pit of his stomach as he made his way through the dark alley behind the club. Booth had drawn his hand along the side of the dumpster as he'd walked past it, and felt his gut clench as he'd passed a stack of broken wooden pallets and a pair of empty wooden liquor crates sitting in a widening puddle next to the dumpster. He'd felt a hard ache in his chest and a dark, grim feeling of foreboding wash over him as he'd stepped over a couple of sharp-edged fragments of a shattered pallet. _What the fuck is going on? _He'd narrowed his eyes and rolled his shoulders, as if by doing so he could jettison the weird feelings he was having in that moment.

_Why do I feel like I've been here before? _he'd asked himself, closing his eyes and shaking his head as he kicked the broken pallet fragments aside with the side of his foot and continued along. He'd glanced back over his shoulder at the broken pallets and empty wood crates as he'd reached the end of the alley. For a moment, Brennan's face had flashed before his eyes, her hair styled differently―longer, a little past her shoulders, and curled a little at the ends―than the simple ponytail he'd seen her wear it in the week or so since he'd been working with her on the Gemma Arrington case. Her blue eyes had flickered at him, as if reflecting a neon blue flash of light as she'd turned to face him, her black-gloved hand extended as she stood there in a thick red coat, beckoning him to follow her. He'd looked up as he'd rounded the corner and saw the blue, eye-shaped neon sign next to the name of the nightclub, "Gleam," and he grunted under his breath. _I really fucked myself up this time, _he'd mumbled. _Fucking tequila. _He blinked a couple of times and kept walking.

_Fucking tequila,_ he'd spat as he brushed his wet hair off his forehead. _If I hadn't been such a damn asshat and overdid it on the fucking tequila, she might not have balked at going home with me._ He'd remembered the way her pale eyes glittered when she'd leaned over the bar and brought her face close to his, her pretty mouth hanging open in a sexy half-grin that had gotten him halfway hard just sitting there looking at her, and he'd clenched his teeth at the thought that he'd let her slip through his fingertips. _Why do I care so much? _he asked himself. _Hell, she's just a friggin' squint. _He'd looked up at the dark sky and noticed that the rain seemed to have let up somewhat. _But I think, maybe, sometimes...she's more than that, _he'd shrugged. _Those eyes of hers―the way she looks at me. God, it's like she knows me. Like she knows something about me that I don't. As if she knows who I am, even though she doesn't know anything about me or where I come from. It's like she sees straight through all that I am...all of it. All the bullshit, and cuts right to the center, and somehow knows what's there. _Booth had sighed as he swung open the door to his building and had bounded up the steps to his apartment. _I really need to lay off the fucking tequila, _he muttered as he'd stood in front of his apartment door fumbling for his keys.

_I mean, shit. _

* * *

Booth cracked open his beer and set it down on the mantle as he turned to open his apartment window to let in the crisp autumn breeze. The cold damp of Washington winter was just around the corner, but for now, the evenings were as pleasant as ever. He was hopeful that the good weather would hold so that, in a couple of weekends, when Parker would go out trick-or-treating, his little boy wouldn't have to cover up his Spider-Man costume with a bulky jacket like Booth had used to have to do some years when he was a kid back in Pennsylvania. The vinyl blinds crinkled against the breeze as he turned to retrieve his beer and made his way over to the sofa.

He tipped his beer back and took a long swig, smirking at the liquor store owner who'd tried to talk him into getting a six-pack of the Shipyard Pumpkinhead Ale. _"Real beer shouldn't have vegetables in it," _he'd told the guy as he wondered whether his partner would chastise him for improperly calling a fruit a vegetable. At the thought of vegetables, he suddenly realized he hadn't had anything to eat since the cheesesteak and curly fries he'd snarfed at lunch and his stomach rumbled loudly in response.

Remembering that he'd eaten his last slice of leftover pizza for breakfast that morning—and that his refrigerator was more or less empty except for beer and a half-gallon of milk of dubious freshness—he walked over to his kitchen counter and grabbed a handful of pumpkin marshmallows—the sweeter and more substantial cousin to candy corn—from the open bag next to the coffeemaker. Shoving a couple of them into his mouth, he glanced over at the fridge and stared at the Chinese take-out menu, then looked at the pile of candy pumpkins in his hand and popped them into his mouth. As he chewed them, he shook his head, unsure why he'd even bought them in the first place when he'd gone to the drugstore and seem them proudly displayed in the aisle of Halloween seasonal items he'd trotted down in order to buy stuff for trick or treaters that would knock on his door if he somehow managed to be home on Halloween. He'd consequently found himself standing in the candy aisle, reaching for the bag and feeling pretty sure he needed to buy them even as he tossed a couple of bags into his cart. It wasn't until he'd gotten home that he realized he wasn't quite certain why he'd gotten them in the first place since Parker liked Jolly Ranchers and Gummy Worms best while he preferred Snickers and Hershey bars above all.

_But these things aren't too bad, though, _he thought with a pleased grin on his face. _Not too bad at all. I like the chewiness. It's kinda awesome in its own way. Like candy corn, but better._

He clicked on the TV and, after hesitating for a moment as he found himself accidentally tuned in to the last five minutes of an Animal Planet documentary on great white sharks, flipped to the live broadcast of the Flyers-Islanders game, which was halfway through the first period with his team up by one goal. The Islanders were showing no signs of being anything other than the epic disaster of perpetual loserdom that they always were, and the Flyers seemed like they were capable of competing with the perennial Eastern Conference powerhouses of the Montreal Canadiens, Pittsburgh Penguins, and the New York Rangers. No sooner had the Flyers begun charging down the ice on a power play when his BlackBerry chirped to signal a text message. He glanced at the screen and saw the name of the sender. _Bones. _He picked up the remote and muted the game as he opened the text message.

_I emailed you my final report of findings on the Ed Milner case._

Booth blinked, wondering why the hell she was sending him a text on a Friday night when their report wasn't due into the Assistant Director until 10:00 Monday morning. He wondered if she was bored, and maybe just wanted an excuse to talk. He arched an eyebrow and shrugged away the thought as he considered an appropriate response, and then thumbed back a quick reply.

_OK, thx. What RU up to 2nite?_

He held the remote control in his left hand, watching the muted game out of the corner of his eye as he waited for his phone to chirp with her response. Booth knew it drove Brennan crazy when he used netspeak and abbreviations in text messages, and so he made a point to truncate his text messages as much as possible when communicating with his partner. A smirk flashed across his lips as he wondered how often she ran out of characters when composing texts. His train of thought was temporarily derailed when, after a few more seconds, the phone vibrated in his hand, and he impatiently pushed the appropriate button so that he could view the text.

_Angela and I are going out dancing. Hodgins is at the lab, trying to fix one of his pieces of equipment._

After a moment, another message came across.

_Angela says she's not going to squander an otherwise good Friday night sitting at home alone. What about you?_

Booth blinked, then sighed as he narrowed his eyes and watched the penalized Islanders forward slide back onto the ice, ending the Flyers' power play. He wobbled the phone in his hand, then thumbed back a response.

_Squandering an o/w good Fri nite at home alone. _He pushed 'send' then, after another moment, punched another text. _Have fun tonite w/Ange, _he typed.

_Because I'm gonna be sitting here tonight like a fucking loser, all by myself, _he frowned. _Would it have fucking killed one of you to extend me a courtesy invite? _He rolled his eyes and sighed. _I mean, for fuck's sake. I can dance. I'm a pretty damn good dancer, actually. _He shook his head and raked his fingers through his hair. _I'm not gonna act like an asshole, _he grumbled silently. _It's not like I'm some jealous Neanderthal who's gonna go around all puffed-up, intimidating all the guys you wanna dance with...as long as you don't let anyone do any bodyshots off of you or anything. Then, well, heh, I'm not really sure what I'd do, but it probably wouldn't be good and would probably piss Bones off. _He slumped back against the couch and sulked in silence.

A couple of minutes passed without a reply, and Booth set the phone down on his coffee table and un-muted the TV. It was nearing the end of the first period, and the Flyers were dominating the ice against the smaller-market, smaller-payroll, less talent-rich Islanders. The announcer's voice soared and peaked as the Flyers surged across the blue line into the Islanders' zone and quickly flung out a shot that sailed just an inch over the top frame of the goal.

"Fuck you, you stupid fucks," he cursed aloud, his gaze not really moving from the TV screen as he watched the game, even as his phone chirped and vibrated, rattling a slow path across the coffee table. Finally, breaking eye contact, his eyes flashed to the screen in his hand.

_Thanks, Booth. _

He scrolled down, looking for more to her message, but found nothing. He tossed his phone back on the coffee table with a loud clatter and reached for his Yuengling long-neck, leaning back against his couch, as the buzzer sounded to end the first period and gulping down the last half of his beer in a couple of swallows.

_Why do I even care so much? _he asked himself, arching his neck over the back of his sofa and sighing loudly. _It's not like_—_well, I know. She doesn't think about..._

Sighing again, Booth stood up gruffly and walked over to the side table in his living room where he kept a bottle of Jameson's Irish whiskey. He'd come to like Irish whiskey a couple of years prior, though he wasn't sure why. Before that, he'd been a devoted Scotch drinker, but a few years back, right before he met Brennan and things finally fell into place on the Gemma Arrington case, he'd found himself in a liquor store, and instead of snagging a bottle of his usual Johnny Walker, he stepped one shelf over and reached for the bottle of Jameson. He didn't even know why he'd done it. If he didn't know any better, he'd say it was almost like an instinct, a reflex.

_Like her._

He poured himself a generous double in the heavy cut-crystal tumbler, one of a set of four he'd picked up at the Knights of Columbus thrift shop the next weekend—another impulse buy that didn't make any sense to him at the time but he which he found himself helpless to resist.

_Like her._

The year after the Gemma Arrington case had been hell—it had sucked, really—and it didn't make sense in his mind as to why it had sucked so badly. There'd been no doubt that a part of him had caught fire when he'd kissed her on the back stoop behind his old pool bar, but after they'd argued and she slapped him, snarling at him that she'd never work with him again, he'd still felt like he'd lost something, and for a year, he'd felt a little knot in the pit of his stomach. And he couldn't even think of drinking tequila after seeing what a wreck he'd made of things with her just from one night of shots at the bar. The thought of drinking tequila—never mind the noxious smell of the stuff—reminded him of what an chickenshit asshat he'd been that night, letting her ride away from him in the rain rather than following her into that cab.

All he could think about after that was how amazing a woman she was, and how he'd let her slip between his clumsy fingers. He thought back, remembering the way she'd kissed him that night, and the way her lips felt on his—so soft yet demanding, silky and smooth even as they grasped at his mouth, her tongue breaching the space between them as she grabbed his lapels and pulled him close, crushing his lips against hers—and how his whole body had felt like it was on fire and she was the only thing that could put it out. He'd been dumbstruck as he watched her taxi pull away into the rain. They'd have been incredible together, he just knew somehow, had they gotten together that night.

_It would've been so fucking epic. So hot. So good. She would've felt fucking amazing. __We__ would've been so fucking good. But none of that happened because I fucked it up because I let her go. I let her walk away from me when I should've gone after her. I don't know why I didn't, _he thought. _But if I had it to do over again, I sure as hell know that I wouldn't make that same mistake twice. I'd have gone after her, I never would've let her go. I mean, fuck_—_what a fucking idiot I was, _he told himself. _I deserved everything I got_—_or didn't get_—_because I was a fucking idiot._

After she'd left his life, swearing him off as she swore at him that afternoon at the Hoover, he still couldn't get her out of his head no matter how hard he tried to get her out of his mind. After his anger towards her had cooled from their argument that day in his office—not just his anger at her for challenging his expertise and authority in front of the victim's mother, but even more so, his fury at himself for losing control of his temper and letting her slip out of his grasp, again—he'd immediately felt guilty about it and wanted to apologize. But she hadn't made apologizing easy. After she'd ignored several of his phone calls the next day, he'd tried to come see her on her turf at the Jeffersonian as a sign of how sorry he was, but he didn't have access to the Medico-Legal Lab, and the security guard wouldn't let him in without an escort which she refused to authorize. He'd left more messages, and sent more emails. He sent her apologetic text messages. He'd even left several voicemails with her friend Angela, the artist, but it had all amounted to nothing. He'd tried time and time again, but still she refused his numerous attempts to make contact, thwarting him at every step.

He smoldered for her, even while he dated Tessa, it felt weird, wrong almost, as if he was cheating on her, even though they never were anything. He'd felt that way for a long time. In fact, he'd never really stopped feeling like that. When he'd been with Tessa, whom he'd started casually seeing during the Gemma Arrington case—he felt like he was going through the motions, like the love he was making to her was an empty bit of sexual theater, and he didn't understand why. Tessa was pretty and sexy, but there was always something that had left him wanting more. She was, in a way, comfortable and familiar, with her blond hair and light eyes, and her small, firm tits with their tight little nipples, but after a while, he tired of her, and he hungered for something...more. For some reason, he'd wanted something...more substantial. Something he could wrap his hands around and get his lips around...just something..._more _than Tessa had ever been. He'd felt bad about it, because it had never been that way for him. He'd always thrown himself completely into whatever relationship he was in, devoting himself to the woman he was with, but after meeting the quirky blue-eyed scientist, suddenly all other women paled in comparison to her. Tessa, Rebecca, and Cam were all beautiful women, each one stunningly gorgeous in her own way, and they were each excellent lovers, but there was always something missing when he was with them after meeting Brennan.

After things fell apart with Tessa, he'd found himself trying to fill the void he'd felt with her by going back to his ex, Rebecca, the mother of his son, hoping that he'd find the heat and fulfillment he wanted by rekindling what they'd had before. What he'd had with her was the closest he'd ever gotten to a forever kind of love that he'd always longed for and dreamed about. Even after it had all fallen apart after she got pregnant with their son, and had rebuffed his marriage proposal, there was still _something _between them—a spark, a want, an unquenched curiosity about what might have been—and he'd gone went back to her, hoping that time had fixed what had broken between them to the point where he'd hoped that they'd be able to pick up where they'd left off before things had gone so bad. But it hadn't worked. Their tumultuous relationship had crashed and burned in a spectacular fiery ball of melodramatic mess in an even shorter amount of time than it had on the first go around. When he'd gone over why things had fallen apart between them before the Elmer's Glue had even been dry on their pseudo-relationship, Booth finally decided that ultimately it had failed because Rebecca didn't cut it, and what they had somehow seemed to be not as good as he'd remembered it was the second time around.

In the end, he'd been glad it hadn't worked out between them, both for Parker's sake—the one good thing they'd ever done together, as far as he was concerned—and because he'd had a stunning realization. At some point, Booth had realized, it had turned out that Rebecca wasn't what he'd wanted, after all. She'd never had been, really, but it wasn't until he'd gone back and tried to make it work with her last year that Booth finally knew the real reason why. She wasn't the one woman he wanted most. She wasn't...well...

_Her._

So he'd tried again. And again, and again as far as Brennan was concerned. It hadn't been easy as she'd made him work for it from the very first moment he'd tried to come back into her life after their disastrous argument on what had been the tail end of the Gemma Arrington homicide investigation. He'd spent months trying to get to her. It was only after his dozens of phone calls, emails and messages left with her kooky assistant, Zack, went unanswered, and she'd ignored the bouquet of daffodils he'd sent her as an apology—though he'd no idea why he chose daffodils and not daisies or some other kind of flower to send her to say that he was sorry and really wanted to talk to her—that he'd finally gotten her to speak to him again. And _that _had only occurred because he'd bent the rules just a bit by tendering a hold-for-questioning request to Homeland Security to snag her after clearing customs at Dulles that he'd finally lured her back into his life.

It was only because he'd been persistent that he'd even known about the opportunity to finally shanghai her when she'd come back to D.C. from Guatemala. Her passport number had finally shown up on a weekly report he gotten emailed. The report gave him her travel information because he'd flagged her vital statistics in the Department of State's intranet via his access to the system via a connection at the Department of Justice. He'd walked into the detention room at Dulles and saw her sitting there with the agent from Homeland Security, giving the man a hard time as a brown, mostly decomposed human skull sat in the middle of the stainless steel table. As soon as the door closed behind him with a heavy _clank_, her head swiveled around and their eyes locked. Her first words to him were _"What are you doing here?"_ but as soon as her slender lips parted, he felt himself falling into her deep blue eyes as his heart seemed to stop. It was a _great _feeling. And after a year without having seen her, he felt the hum inside of him begin to sing as his eyes quickly skimmed the lines of her beautiful, square-jawed face. And when he did, he felt the smoldering inside of him begin to flicker into something hotter and more difficult to extinguish. But still, she'd held her distance, keeping him at arm's length, and it was obvious to him that she didn't want him as they fell into an uneasy and tense partnership that had, nevertheless, done something extraordinary—made it so they interacted with each other on a regular and consistent day-to-day basis where they both played an increasingly important role in each other's lives. It still wasn't everything he wanted from her, but it had been a decent start.

Still, he craved more from her, and the more time he spent with her, the more desperate he felt to fill the void he felt gaping inside of him whenever he wasn't with her. He wanted to feel whole again, to no longer feel the twitchy lack that troubled him each morning as he woke alone and each night as he lay in his bed, staring at the ceiling in the half-light as a neon sign flickered outside his window. So he looked for that familiarity, comfort, and passion somewhere else, and when an opportunity finally presented itself, he jumped at it. He needed someone, something, to take the edge off, to fill the void he felt inside. For a while, thought he might have found it in his old friend Camille Saroyan even though their first attempt at a relationship many years, when they were both in their late teens, had been exciting and new but never went anywhere in the long run. But after fate threw them together again, they were older, each more secure in themselves and their place in the world, and he'd hoped that it would be different this time. The fire that flickered between them caught the kindling and briefly flamed again, and for a while he felt the heat and fulfillment he'd been seeking. Being with her was so easy, so comfortable, and when she'd made it clear that she still wanted him—and had made that fact very clear to him as she continued to pursue him in the relentlessly dedicated way that Cam did everything in life—he'd given in, surrendered, and taken what she'd offered without a second thought or a backward glance.

But again, in the end, no matter how hard he tried to throw himself and his whole heart into the woman who shared his bed at night, he still felt empty. He wasn't even sure when he'd first begun to realize it, but when the Gravedigger took Brennan, he felt his world begin to crumble around him so precipitously that it had taken him completely and totally by surprise. Sitting there at the diner, across the table from Cam as she tried to convince him to go away for the weekend to New York with her, he'd picked up his cell phone and heard a garbled voice warn of dire consequences if a tremendous ransom wasn't paid for Brennan's life. From that moment on, he'd known that nothing else had mattered. From that moment on, there was only one reason for him to exist**—**to find her, to protect her, to save her. That was all that mattered...only one thing. No matter what he had to do, no matter what price he had to pay, he'd find her because he had to do it. He couldn't imagine failing. Failure wasn't an option. He'd find a way to save her because he didn't know how he'd go on if he didn't. He hadn't ever felt that way about another person in his entire life before**—**not even his son. No, there was only one person who made him feel that way.

_Just her. Only her._

And so, with the help of the squints, and the grace of God, they'd saved her and Hodgins, but after that, after almost losing her, there had been a price**—**namely, Booth's relationship with Cam, which had begun to falter around the time that he and Brennan went to Vegas for the mob-hit case. He'd been able to control himself around her, bide his time and want her in wistful silence, but the afternoon they went to Sloppy Joe Nolan's boxing gym—the afternoon he'd seen her transformed from his partner, Bones, into some other fascinating and sexy woman when she'd put on that snug, low-cut black dress that hugged every inch of her curvy hips and drew his hungry eyes to the round swell of her breasts, and it had everything he could do not to take her against the wall of their shared hotel room—he'd had trouble feeling what he got from Brennan in their partnership was enough to keep him happy. He'd started to want _more _and that want had taken its toll on his relationship with Cam, so much so that it had deteriorated badly by the time the Gravedigger reached out and struck that which Booth held closest to his heart:

_Her_.

The prospect of losing Brennan shook him to the core, and he realized that he'd been a fool to look anywhere else to fill the void inside of him, a void he knew could be filled only by her.

_Just her. Only her._

It was as if—somehow, at some point in time that he didn't quite remember—she'd had become the standard, the benchmark against which he measured all other women. Though he sought love in the arms of other women, and gave everything he had to making it work with each of them, he'd felt drawn to her, again and again, even though his subtle hints and approaches seemed rebuffed at every turn. It occurred to him that Friday night, sitting on his couch alone with a double-Jameson's, that all of them, every woman he was with after he met her, fell breathtakingly short of the bar set by the one woman who'd ever taken his breath away.

_Her._

_Just her. Only her._

He knew that he could spend the rest of his life looking for the woman who would make him complete as a man, but as long as the woman he loved and made loved to was someone other than Brennan, he knew he would never be whole. He knew he never _could _be—even if he wasn't quite certain why he knew that truth. She was the only woman he really wanted, and the only woman he could make love to with his entire soul. She was the one, and the voice inside of him told Booth that she'd always been the one, from the very beginning.

His thoughts of Brennan again drifted to the last time he'd seen her. He thought back to the conversation he'd had with his partner at the Royal Diner the night before as they were celebrating their usual post-case dinner—although, had Booth been honest, he'd been sharing meals with her more often than not, and it no longer took a special occasion to justify spending time with her.

They'd been talking about the weird horse fetishist case they'd just finished, and he'd been trying to explain to her the difference between 'crappy sex' and 'the real thing'—that is, making love. The whole case had kind of wigged him out, and not because of the fetishist aspects of it, although that certainly kept him oscillating the whole time between a serious case of the heebie-jeebies and wetting his pants with laughter. No, it wasn't only the case's unusual, well, wackiness that had put Booth on edge. It had been he fact that the central issues in the case forced him to talk about sex with his partner, his partner who he'd been hungering for and smoldering over for the better part of three years, and the same partner that he was fairly certain didn't think of _him _that way. It was a subject he'd avoided discussing with her as much as possible. His view of sex and her stated views on the subject were oceans apart. For him, sex was the most intimate way for two people to open up to one another, but for her, it was two bodies answering the call of their biological imperatives. Humans were not naturally monogamous, she'd told him more than once, and she'd mocked his idea of finding a perfect, true love as too idealized and impossible to attain.

It pained him to hear her talk so casually about sex and so dismissively of love as he sat there, biting his tongue as the voice inside of him murmured that, despite what she was saying, Brennan knew better. For some reason, she'd just forgotten. It also hurt Booth to hear her say such things because she was the one he truly loved, that she was the one he was meant to be with, and she was the one who stoked the smoldering desire he felt for her to the point that he _knew _he could so the same for her—if he was just given the chance to do it. He knew what he wanted, but not knowing if she wanted him, he left his wants unspoken, suppressed and mute. This case threatened to erode the wall he'd carefully crafted to keep their partnership safe. Talking about sex and physical intimacy with the one woman whom he'd most wanted to know that way—intimately—but with no certain way to achieve such a goal, had nearly driven him out of his mind.

The final night of the case had been particularly grueling for him. He'd been sitting with her in their usual table in the corner of the diner, eating his usual hamburger, when he suddenly dropped his burger onto his plate with a soft _splat _as a wave of nausea washed through his gut.

"_I didn't lose my appetite because you mentioned horse meat," he told her. "I lost my appetite because you made me think about all those people parading around, pretending to be something they aren't, just so they could have crappy sex."_

"_How do you know it's crappy?" she asked._

"_Gotta be, Bones," he snorted, scrunching up his nose and furrowing brows as he stared back at her. "Come on, it's gotta be."_

"_Why?" she pressed him, questioning him with a narrow-eyed look and a faint smile as she leaned back in her chair. He heard something on the edge of her voice—something more than the usual teasing or skepticism he was used to hearing from her as she poked and challenged him in the way that had always both irritated and intrigued him. He felt a strange murmur inside of him as he began to explain, and he found himself looking deep into her eyes, transfixed as something behind her gaze flickered at his words, though she held her lips still. _

"_Every once in awhile," he told her, his voice low and velvety as a faint smile marked his lips. "Two people meet, and there's that spark." Booth felt his belly flip as he stared across the table at his partner and the woman he considered to be his best friend. He would've sworn he saw something in her eyes—a flash of blue—but he blinked away the thought and continued. "And yes, Bones, he's handsome. And she's beautiful. And maybe that's all they see at first..." _

_His mouth gaped open slightly as he felt a tingle deep in his gut, crackling outward from the base of his spine. He'd felt this feeling many times before, going back to the very first day he'd met her, back at American, fading again and rearing its head again early on in the first year of their partnership. He remembered feeling it when they went to Washington State for the man-eating bear case, and how it had peaked that night they'd gone to the town bar, and he'd rescued her from the grabby paws of the local bumpkins and danced with her, hip to hip, filling his nose with the smell of her vanilla and honey shampoo as he felt her breath on his skin. He'd felt it that first Christmas, when they were quarantined in the lab with the rest of the squints, and he'd seen her clad only in a tank top and casual pants, sitting by herself on the platform in the middle of the night, leaning over a microscope so he could see down her shirt and admire up close the smooth, silky skin of her round, full breasts that he'd itched to reach out and touch, and years later, still made him just hard thinking about. It was a miracle that, in the haze of antifungal medication he'd been in that night, he hadn't make a move on her. He'd felt it when he'd gotten her call from New Orleans after she'd woke up, bloodied and beaten, unable to remember what had happened to her, and how he hadn't given a second thought before dropping everything to fly out to be with her. As he thought about it, he realized this feeling, which aroused him in a way that was more than just a purely sexual, was something he'd only felt around her and only her._ _It was a curious feeling, an energy of some sort, that made the hair on his arms and legs stand on end as he watched her face and continued to explain himself. _

_"But making love," he told her with a confident and knowing nod. "Making love. That's when two people become one." _

_As soon as the words left his lips, Booth felt another strange sensation, a fleeting flash of déjà-vu that lasted only a second. He'd never talked about this with her before, and he didn't know why he'd be feeling this way. He heard the murmur in the back of his mind again, and he raised his eyebrows as Brennan opened her mouth to speak._

_"It is scientifically impossible for two objects to occupy the same space," she said with a strange glint in her eye, and he suspected from the look in her eye and the tone of her voice that she was being intentionally dense. _

_But yet, there was something more. _

_There was always something more with her. _

_Even that first morning, in the first moments when he'd seen her face and heard her voice ring across that lecture hall, he'd known that she was more than she seemed. In a way, he thought, she was two people: Dr. Temperance Brennan, expert forensic anthropologist, on the one hand, and on the other hand, well—someone else, someone deeper, more mysterious, and more intriguing, someone who felt deeply and embraced ideas and theories about the universe that most people didn't even think about. That she was both women, all in one, fascinated him to the core. _

_As she sat there in front of him, blinking back at him with a straight, expressionless mouth and a bright flash in her eye, Booth somehow knew that the woman who sat in front of him that evening who blinked back in that moment in time wasn't just the staid, ever-rational scientist he'd come to know over the years, but rather the wide-minded woman of mystery—the woman he felt he knew but craved to know more deeply. The humming he felt inside of him grew stronger, seeming to whisper some type of reassurance that he was right, and the murmur in the dark thicket of his thoughts continued to warble louder with each second that passed between them. _

That's when two people become one.

_His own words echoed in his mind as he smiled at her. "Yeah," he'd told her. "But what's important is we try. And when we do it right, we get close."_

"_To what?" she said with a faint laugh at the edge of her husky voice. "Breaking the laws of physics?"_

"_Yeah, Bones," he'd replied with a lopsided grin. "A miracle..."_

_He'd felt his stomach flip in his belly again as the word miracle fell from his lips, and a warmth oozed through his chest as the murmur in the back of his mind took shape and formed words. _When two people become one, _it said to him. _She's the one. The one for you. The one who's been a part of you for longer than you can remember. _A lump formed in his throat as he thought how badly he wanted her, and for how long he'd wanted her, and how empty he'd felt in the interminably long year that he went without her. _

He closed his eyes and shook his head, took a long sip of his Jameson's and felt the liquor burn its way down his throat as he leaned back against the couch. _She doesn't want me that way, _he told himself. _She doesn't. I'd know it if she did. _He paused for a beat as another thought occurred to him. _Besides, it's not right for me to push her that way. If I tried to push her for more when she doesn't want it, or isn't ready for it, it would be wrong. I can't take advantage of her like that. I have to protect her...protect our partnership...protect what we have no matter the cost. _

So he'd drawn the line, unilaterally, and reminded himself that he had to stay on the safe side of that line, both for his good as well as hers. That line, which cut him deeply to have to draw, was the price he'd had to pay to keep her safe. After the Gravedigger and Epps, Booth couldn't contemplate a life without her. To protect her, to save her, to keep her happy and safe, he would do anything—including deprive himself of her—if being with her the way he wanted to be with her meant she was exposed to danger. But the longer he held that line, the more it wore on him. He felt a battle raging inside of him between the inexplicable pull he felt towards her and the deep protectiveness he felt for her. The pull was so strong, he nearly gave in, more than once, but he reminded himself that he had to keep her safe, so he always held himself back. It wore on him, and he slowly felt himself eroding under the strain of it.

_I can't do this, _he sighed. _Fucking madness. I want her more than anything, but I know she doesn't want me. I want to tell her how much she means to me, but if I do, I could lose her. And that's just one risk, one gamble I'm not willing to take. I just can't lose her. Not now, not ever. I just __can't_.

He thought of all the men who'd passed through her life in the years since he'd met her, and how none of them even approached being worthy of her. There was the weird guy she met online, David Simmons, who'd set Booth's highly-honed spidey-senses all aflutter. He thought about that bastard professor of hers, Michael Stires, who'd betrayed her early on in the first year of their partnership. Then he thought about Sully, his friend and FBI colleague, who'd loved her in his way, but had eventually shown how little he really knew her when he'd tried to get her to sail away with him to the West Indies. A frown crossed his face as he thought about how she seemed to favor the tall, handsome, dark-haired types who reminded him a lot of the guy he looked at in the mirror every morning when he brushed his teeth.

_Why not me, Bones? _he asked, glancing over at his BlackBerry, as if the little phone would suddenly light up with her response to his silent question. _Why not me? Am I not good enough for you? _He shook his head again and drained the last ounce of his whiskey in a single swallow. _I could make you happy, Bones, if you just gave me a chance. _After the whiskey burned its way down his throat, and its vapors wafted their way into his sinuses, the voice in the back of his head _tsked _at him. _Of course, how could she give you the chance, you tool, since you never even really gave her a real chance? You never really made a move, so who cock-blocked who here, boyo? _

He slammed the cut-crystal tumbler on the coffee table with a hard thunk and stood up from the sofa. He picked up the remote, clicked off the game, threw the remote back on the sofa and turned around to walk into his bedroom.

He thought of the look in her glimmering blue eyes the night before at the diner and the way his skin had flushed warm as he felt himself falling into those eyes, farther and deeper with each passing second. It wasn't just the way she felt so uncannily familiar to him. _ It was more_. She was real, and the way she made him feel, for reasons he couldn't begin to articulate, made him feel that what existed between them, whatever it was, was also real. It was real, and it was profound, and as he looked into her bright blue eyes, he felt himself sinking deeper into it.

"_Those people," he'd told her. "Role-playing and their fetishes and their little sex games. It's crappy sex. Well, at least compared to the real thing."_

_She'd blinked, her blue-gray eyes flickering for a moment as she considered his words. _

"_You're right," she'd said._

As he lay in his bed that night, his throat still aflame with the burn from the Jameson whiskey, he tried to shake away the raw energy coursing through his limbs as his whole body felt all a-twitter. The way she'd looked back at him the night before, her eyes alive with _something_, some kind of emotion that he couldn't quite put his finger on, and the way she'd actually agreed with him, conceding his point about making love**—**he'd felt it, and in that moment, somehow...he'd just _known_. He'd known that she felt it, too. Whatever it was, this thing that crackled between them, it was real and special and just between them, and he was certain that she'd felt it, too.

"_You're right," she'd said._

As the warm arms of sleep slowly embraced him that night, he felt a curious optimism begin to murmur inside of him, a new feeling he hadn't felt before, pulsing deep in his gut next to the caution and doubt that had resided there for so long. He knew what he wanted, and he knew who he wanted it with...

_Her._

* * *

It had been a long night.

It had been a long night, and a lot had already happened to them both. After the EMTs and requested backup had arrived at Aloha Flowers Supply in the village of Friendship Heights near Chevy Chase, Maryland. They'd located Megan Shaw, alive and still traumatized over what had happened to her since she'd been kidnapped just a few days earlier. They'd discovered Brennan and Booth, bruised, battered, bleeding, and in Booth's case, suffering from a flesh wound in his left leg. And, they'd found Peter Geller's dead body—shot in the chest, through a metal door, by Booth with a single bullet from Brennan's gun. By the time that Booth had finished talking to members of his field detail that had scurried to answer the call of their supervisor's plea for backup, Brennan had stayed with Megan Shaw until her parents arrived to accompany her to a nearby hospital. More paperwork and discussions and the need to convey explanations would await them upon their return to work the next day. But, after a couple of hours—and, when it became clear that Booth was going to be stubborn and not let the EMTs take him to the hospital to have his leg treated beyond what they'd already done at the scene—the only thing that remained was for Booth and Brennan to leave. Neither one of them was quite ready to go home, not after everything that had happened. And, so that was how they ended up returning to the lab.

As the sliding glass doors opened, the first thing that both Booth and Brennan noticed was how quiet the lab was. Booth's lips pursed as he quickly surveyed the law and saw that, but for the pair of them, the whole area was essentially deserted.

"Where is everybody?" Brennan asked, her eyes surveying the empty lab as she frowned when confronted by the sight that greeted them.

Booth took a slow step forward, his leg a bit stiff from having held it in a rather uncomfortable position while the EMTs had applied a topical anesthetic and sutured the wound that he'd gotten from being grazed by a bullet from his partner's oversized gun. Glancing around, his battered (and borrowed) Jeffersonian blue lab coat in one hand, he shrugged his shoulders as he answered, "At the party, I guess."

Brennan looked back over at him and quickly responded, "We could still go."

Glancing down at his own haggard appearance, and then taking in the sight of Brennan's ruined costume, he slowly shook his head. "Ah, we look like hell," he grumbled with a sad shake of his head since he'd been particularly looking forward to seeing all the eggheads at the party see his squint costume.

Knowing how proud of himself that Booth had been when he'd come up with his costume, Brennan wanted to try to salvage the night for him. "It's a Halloween party," she began tentatively. "We could be Wonder Woman and—ummm," she lightly hit his forearm with her hand as she gestured at him. "What's Superman's secret identity?"

Reaching into his plaid shirt pocket, Booth pulled out the thick black-rimmed glasses and put them on his face. He then leveled a serious stare at her as he pointed with his index finger and answered, "Clark Kent."

Smiling at him, Brennan nodded, "Yes." She then chuckled as she added, "We could be Wonder Woman and Clark Kent after a really, _really _bad date."

She then realized that not only was she tired and sore and feeling strange because of what night it was—particularly when it was the first Halloween interlude in eighty-five years where, even though she was spending it with Booth, they wouldn't be any closer than they were in that moment...and definitely _wouldn't _be having sex—but her feet hurt. Taking a few more steps, Brennan sat down with a soft grunt on the platform's steps.

Booth narrowed his eyes at her as he replied, "Yeah, a bad date." Taking the lab coat that he'd been carrying, he tossed it on one of the railings as he pointed at her. His brow crinkled as he said, a bit of indignation coming into his voice, "Because you shot me."

Quick to defend herself, Brennan retorted, "It was only a flesh wound." She then pointed out, "And you dropped me on my head."

Gesturing with his hands, Booth refused to concede the point to his partner. "After you shot me," he said. He then reached up and pulled off his glasses before he moved to sit down next to her as he said, "Okay, I think I got you on this one. Okay, Wonder Woman?"

Brennan flashed him another look in response even as he sighed heavily. He wagged his eyebrows at her to emphasize the point. Her pale blue eyes, an even more noticeable shade of blue than their normal color because of the silver eyeshadow and dark smudges that circled her eyes, quickly gave him a once over. The pair sat there for a moment, enjoying the quiet, even as Booth looked away from her. She could feel that something was weighing heavily on his mind, and she believed she had a good idea as to what it might be. Her suspicions were confirmed even as she started to speak and watched his jaw tense in reaction to her words.

"I'm sorry you had to kill someone," she said, her voice low and quiet. She watched Booth stare at a random spot on the lab's floor even as his tongue darted between his lips, another tell that he was distracted and distressed by the point that she'd just verbalized even though he'd been the one to think of it first. "I know you hate that," she added, in what she hoped was a comforting voice.

After she'd spoken, Booth finally turned his head and looked over at her as he said, "Yeah, he had it coming."

Knowing that he was trying to dismiss the issue, and make it appear as if it wasn't a big deal that was causing him emotional turmoil, Brennan tried once more to comfort him. She inclined her head to let him know that his attempt to downplay the issue was an effort in futility as far as she was concerned. "You hate it," she told him, making a statement of fact and not asking a question as she did so. Her voice became a bit more tender as she apologized, "I'm sorry that happened to you."

Booth again answered simply, "We saved the girl." He nodded once before adding, "That's a pretty good date." He narrowed his eyes and considered what he'd said, then flashed his eyebrows once and shrugged with a lazy, open-mouthed grin and a flirtatious twinkle in his eye.

She stared at him for a moment, remembering the thousand times he'd given her that look and how quickly she'd go from smiling back to feeling his demanding lips on hers as he pressed his hard body into her, pinning her against the wood-paneled wall of her London home as his grasping lips worked their way down her neck. Brennan saw the flicker in his warm brown eyes and remembered him standing there in bare feet at the doorway to her bedroom, clad in trousers, suspenders and a tank T-shirt, and how those eyes had darkened as they surveyed her naked form as she lay in bed with her sheet draped casually over her hip and the cold wind howled, rattling her window as it blew off Lake Michigan. Her eyes followed the quirked line of his eyebrow and recalled the countless times he'd teased her with racy banter as his voice dropped into the lower registers and they circled each other with scarcely-restrained hunger, never sure which one would be the first to crack and give in to lust, but knowing that once one of them did, they would both be engulfed in desire as he would take her, however and wherever they broke, whether it was in the slate-floored walk-in shower of his penthouse apartment or on the buttery-soft leather couch in his Wolfram & Hart office.

_No, _she told herself as she blinked away the memory and tried to ignore the flood of feelings that she felt awash in at that moment. _No, it's not...I can't, _she told herself silently as she blurted out, "Except not really a date."

"I know," he nodded at her. "It was—"

"—work," Brennan completed his sentence. She then added, "Not a date." _Even if I wish it had been...very, __very_ _much._

Booth, not seeming to pick up in her slight change in mood, quantified her point by saying, "A really, really hard one."

Even as he sat there looking at her, his dark brown eyes looking directly into hers, Brennan started to panic as she tried to reestablish in her mind that no matter how much she wanted tonight to be different from every night that had filled the last three years, it wasn't. Struggling to find a logical (and distinct) reminder, she said, "And, we're not really Wonder Woman and Clark Kent." As Booth continued to stare at her, she felt herself being sucked into the wide expanse of his warm brown eyes as if by falling into his gaze she could feel his strong arms wrapped around her and his big, thick-fingered hands curling around her hips.

Brennan felt his fingers on her hips and leaned her head back slightly, sure in that moment, for that short, fleeting moment, that she could feel his teeth scrape across the skin of her neck as he pressed her against the exposed brick wall of her apartment as the biting Midwestern wind hurled the rain in heavy sheets against the window. Her mouth fell open, and she almost whispered the name _'Angel,' _but she caught herself and closed her eyes, shaking her head as she took a breath. She bit the inside of her lip to remind herself of the very important point lest she forget in this time and place who they each really were—not who they might've been or who she wished they could be.

"We're Brennan and Booth."

For his part, Booth seemed a bit uncertain as to why Brennan had started acting slightly strange. He noticed her tense body language and hoped he could put her at ease as he said, "Look, you're the one who brought up the date analogy—" He then smiled at her, feeling a strange flash of energy jump between them, almost like static electricity, which puzzled him.

Opening her eyes again, Brennan saw him raise his eyebrows expectantly, and she remembered how that brow had creased when she'd mentioned that she'd written a book. _"Your everyman," he'd told her, his eyebrows waggling as he grinned. "It should be a guy." _She glanced down at his hands and recalled the countless nights she'd fallen asleep as those hands had gently caressed her hair as she nuzzled into the crook where his arm and shoulder met, resting her cheek against the muscles of his chest.

She closed her eyes and saw a small vase of daffodils, white and yellow in her mind's eye, sitting in the warmly-lit entryway to her terraced house in Cheapside, and heard his brogued voice murmur in her ear as she felt his arm snake around her waist. _"Ya like the wee blooms I brought for ya, lass?" he asked. "I got ya both the colors this time. The white ones remind me of your pretty skin, so pale and perfect." _

She raised her chin and sighed, and she remembered him as he walked into her bedroom, his hands full with a tray of tea and scones. She remembered his warm brown eyes looking up from his tea. _"I'm not leaving, Bren," he'd said. "I'm staying. As long as you'll have me, I'll be here, right by your side." _

She felt her arms suddenly pebble with gooseflesh as she remembered waking up with him in a white, gauzy room off the Pacific Coast Highway in the quiet hours before morning twilight, the cool, salty summer breeze blowing in from the patio and making the mosquito netting around their bed sway as he made deep, gentle love to her, his groans met by her low sighs as he rocked his body against hers in the clear, angled moonlight as it reflected off Monterey Bay. _"Ohh, Bren," he'd groaned, shuddering and holding himself inside of her as he flooded her with his release. _She shook her head and opened her eyes, unable to resist smiling back at the toothy, brown-eyed grin that greeted her.

It was almost _too _much for her as the memories washed over her.

_Almost, _she thought. _But, I can handle it. That was then...this is now. I can handle it. He's not Angel anymore. He hasn't been Angel for years. He's not Angel, and he doesn't feel that way about me. He's my partner. He's Booth. He's my partner and my friend. Nothing more. _

But, even as Booth smiled at her and she mentally tried to remind herself that the man who sat next to her wasn't a man who loved her and had for over a century, and Brennan felt a familiar flip flop sensation in the pit of her stomach, for just the briefest of seconds—despite her earlier resolutions not to forget—Brennan didn't remember who or what they were in this time and place. All she saw were an intimately familiar pair of soulful brown eyes, a hauntingly charming smile, and a very kissable pair of lips that she longed to feel once more. Unable to help herself, she leaned forward and tilted her head slightly as she closed the space between them.

Her lips were just fractions of an inch from his and she felt his breath on her upper lip and could hear the ragged sound of his breath rattling in his throat. Her nostrils flared as she inhaled the scent of his sandalwood aftershave and the faint tingle of his menthol shaving cream, and she suddenly remembered the night she found him huddled in the cold on Halsted Street on a windblown Halloween night eighty-four years earlier. She recalled lathering up his face as he lay in her bathtub and shaving him with a straight-razor, and the incredible way they'd made love afterward, sharing a bed again for the first time in a quarter century. She remembered the way he'd cradled her in his arms that night as she dozed off in the wake of her release.

For a minute, smelling him and feeling his lips so close to hers, she felt as if they were back in her bed in Chicago or in his bed in L.A. or anywhere where it would've been okay for them to be together...anywhere but where they were in that moment. She'd wanted him for so long, and—but for that first case when she'd still be getting her bearings on knowing and remembering the difference between who he'd been as Angel and who he was as Booth—she'd been strong and done what she needed to do to protect the life he had now. She hadn't come close since that night in front of the pool hall to contravening his free will. She'd toed the line, as she was doing this night, but had never crossed it. She never went too far, but was sorely tempted on this night—this Halloween night when she was at both her strongest and weakest, her most vulnerable—to see how far she could go with him without going too far. She wanted him—she _always _wanted him—but she especially wanted him on this night that had always been so special for her, for _them_. For months, she'd been preparing herself for knowing that, even if she'd be with him for some part of that day or night, it wouldn't be the same. She'd have to face it herself. Brennan wasn't quite certain how things were going to proceed, but she knew she'd find someway to get through it all. Still, as she was trying to survive the process of 'getting through' things, the emotions and sensations of a hundred fifty years of being with him and loving him inundated her. She felt as if she was drowning in a waterfall of memories and—in fleeting moment of total weakness when she stopped thinking and only felt...remembering not who she was or who he was or where they were...only how they felt—she reached over and kissed him.

Booth's lips parted and he felt a wave of desire wash over him as Brennan's tongue slipped into his willing mouth and twirled briefly against his.

He moaned into her kiss as she pulled away slightly and then kissed him again, her glossy, bright-red lips grasping at his mouth hungrily as he suddenly began to feel lightheaded as the floor started to spin beneath his feet. As he closed his eyes, surrendering himself to the sensation of feeling her mouth on his, and her velvety tongue dance with his, the warm, shapeless black before his eyes suddenly exploded into a dizzying kaleidoscope of images, sounds, smells, tastes, and emotions that inundated him as he felt Brennan's lips pull away from his with a husky laugh.

His brow knit low and hard over his eyes as he took a couple of stumbling steps back and shook his head in frustration as if the violent movement of his head would still the cacophony of sounds and images that were flooding his mind.

_He looked over at Brennan, with her bee-stung lips and her chest rising and falling in ragged, heaving breaths, and her face was bathed in warm, flickering firelight, the soft reddish curls of her hair falling free from her braid as she shook her head from side to side, causing her silky auburn hair to cascade over her shoulders and spread fanlike over the pillow as she fell back onto the bed._

Seeing the panic in Booth's wide eyes, Brennan reached her hand out to touch his arm, and he grunted, shrugging out of her grasp and batting her hand away.

_He suddenly felt cold, a hard, damp, frigid wind biting at his cheeks as he saw her reach for him, her black-gloved hand extended as he stared at the alleyway's snow-dusted brick paving stones. He pushed himself off the ground with his knuckles, the cold making his skin painfully sensitive as the corners of the bricks scraped at his dried, calloused skin._

Booth grunted as he brought his hands up to his face and covered his eyes, rubbing them with the heels of his hands as he growled in frustration. He squeezed his eyes shut, but still the images flooded his vision. He gritted his teeth and covered his ears even as he heard his partner say his name in a firm yet gentle tone of voice.

"_Angel," she whispered, walking over to him and placing her hand on his shoulder._

"No," he groaned, swiping his arm through the air as he tried to push her away. "_No! _No...no...no..." Booth held his hand out in front of his face as if to shield himself from her penetrating gaze. "Just leave me alone," he hissed. "Go away. I don't know why you're doing this to me. Leave me alone. I don't need you. Don't touch me."

"_No way," Brennan told him quite simply. "That's not good enough, Angelus."_

"Stop it!" he shouted, waving his hands in the air in front of him as he clenched his eyes tightly shut and shook his head with a growl. "Go away. I don't want...just leave me alone, will you?"

Booth's breaths came hard and shallow as he squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head repeatedly as if by doing so he could rattle the obtrusive images and sounds from his mind.

* * *

**-tbc-**

* * *

**A/N2**: Uh, oh...what did Brennan do? And, more important, what's going to happen to Booth now that she's done it?

We're off and running, ladies and gentlemen.

If you're ready for what we think is probably the most a-linear, but most enlightening piece of the entire Angel(us)-Booth/Brennan nine-story cycle, then buckle up and get ready. This is part one of what we think is a five-part story. So, please, let us know what you think by clicking that bright shiny blue button below, and we'll be back shortly with Part 2.

In the meantime, if you haven't already, don't forget to check out Twitter and look at where Brennan is dishing on her relationship with Angel(us)-Booth and these stories...among other things. Just Google Twitter and WitchyBren and you can read all about it in between chapter postings...or even ask her a question or leave a comment if you want. She's very snarky and fun and won't put a hex on you...unless you really, _really _deserve it.

Until then, we'll be back shortly. Promise!


	2. Part II: The Facade Cracks

**Echoes True and False**

**By:** Lesera128 & dharmamonkey

**Rated: **M

**Disclaimer: **Here we posit our normal rigmarole. No, we don't own anything from _Bones _or _Angel... _or anything else. Yes, we're wreaking what havoc we can with these characters that we don't own to create an awesome story. But, since it's only for the purposes of creative enjoyment and amusing distraction, we think we're okay. Are there any other questions? No? ::blinks:: Good. Then moving on―

**Summary: **Please see Part I.

**Logistical Notes: **Please see Part I.

**A/N: **Welcome back, folks. The ladies of Dharmasera wanted to take a moment to remind you of a few things before we dive back into the story (because it's about to get really, _really _wacky).

First, if you skipped some or all of the first six stories in this series (which covered the first 150 years of Brennan's love affair with the vampire Angelus/Angel), what follows may be quite confusing. No, scratch that. It definitely, most assuredly, we absolutely guarantee that it will be. You will have absolutely no idea what in the hell is going on. Even for those who have been reading (or scanning, which we really don't get, but okay) everyone needs to keep in mind that the Booth of this story is partly the Booth you know, and partly a different Booth, a Booth who has a parallel past as the vampire Angel(us). Two separate lives, both lived in the real world, accumulating real memories, real experiences, real thoughts and feelings that have been grafted together into a single life lived, just as two separate plants are grafted together and thereafter grow as one. That mystical grafting occurred in the weeks before Booth walked into that classroom at American University. So, even though he didn't at that point remember his vampire past, it's still somehow a part of him. (Make sense? No? Good.) In any case, the man who walked into Brennan's lecture in our story is a bit different than the man you know from canon even if he seems really similar to the Booth you know and love from the series (at least, so far). We really suggest, both for your sanity and ours, that you please keep that in mind as you read.

Second, as you can tell, this series presents a complex story of a supernatural nature. Things happen that can't be explained by science or the laws of nature as we know them to exist. Furthermore, things happen that will raise questions in your mind as readers: you'll find that sometimes the answers to these questions have already been given in earlier installments and sometimes they will be presented going forward, which in either case is why the story must be read carefully. This story is like a puzzle for the readers. It's not an easy read, and we know that, but we hope you enjoy the challenge of the puzzle as you read and conclude in the end that it was worth the effort. We think you will.

Third, and we said this at the end of Part I, the next few parts of this story are _very _alinear. Like Joss Whedon did to the viewers of BtVS and AtS, we're tossing out bits as they come, not as they happened (if that made any sense). You're going to get information and explanations, but most likely not in the way you want because the piece starts, like the flood of memories that returns to Booth, as a messed up flood of thoughts and feelings and recollections. So, when we say alinear...we really, _really _mean it. Events are quite purposely presented in a non-chronological order. It may not be clear when things are happening, how or why they are. In fact, we'd be quite surprised if most of you read this and don't feel confused, bewildered, and not sure what in the hell is going on. That's okay. It's as you should feel. As you read, it will probably seem like it's all a random gush of memories and experiences. Indeed, this is by design, since this is how Booth perceives them.

The best we can say is, sit back in your easy chair (or other reading furniture of choice), relax, open the proverbial Third Eye and just read, paying close attention to italics (which, as ever, denote a flashback) and regular font which indicate present time. Sometimes the shifts come hard and fast, but try to take it in, soak it up, consider what you've read, and (as Booth told Brennan in the Vegas episode "The Woman in the Sand") just try to keep an open mind. Eventually, it will all make sense. We promise. Just be patient, and carry on.

**UNF Alert: **Oh, yeah, _that_. Well, we told you at the beginning of Part I that there was _unf _in your reading future, and we gave you an IOU. Part II is our first installment payment on that note that we gave you. Consider yourself duly warned that some serious unfness follows. And, on that note, if you are not of a legal age to be reading this (and we know that some of you who are minors are reading this anyway even though you shouldn't be), please don't tell us. You shouldn't, but it's a free country, so we just don't want to know. Thanks.

* * *

**Part II: The Facade Cracks**

* * *

Booth's eyes suddenly snapped open, his face blanched, and his mouth fell open as he panted for breath. His wide eyes stared off in the distance at some indeterminate spot over Brennan's shoulder as he shook his head again and again in slight jerks as his lips moved even as no sounds passed from his lips.

_Oh, shit, _he thought as the room seemed to spin around him, and he felt the trapdoor in his gut open up. _Shit, shit, shit_.

A sickening wave of nausea washed over him as he felt light-headed, a raw tingling in his hands reminding him of the time the brakes on his ten-speed locked up and failed as he was coasting down Germantown Avenue in Philly at a much higher speed than he should've been riding at given the incline. It was just all too much for him to even wrap his mind around—all the images, sounds and smells, the memories and experiences, all of them real enough and vivid enough it was if he could reach out and touch them. They came at him all at once, in a tidal wave that knocked him over, inundated by memories that washed over him, swallowing him up as he choked and struggled to keep his bearings. He felt himself caught up in a rip current of feeling that tugged at him from just below the the surface of his memories, and the harder he struggled to stay upright and close to the shore of the familiar, the farther and farther out the current seemed to drag him away. The more he fought it, the more exhausted and disoriented he became until he was gasping for breath. Somehow, amid the mind-rending panic he felt at being sucked under by the crushing weight of it all, he felt his St. Christopher medal hanging there beneath his shirt, the metal cold against the flushed skin of his chest, and he heard the familiar murmur humming faintly in his ears.

Brennan, her own head spinning as her heart raced and she realized the gravity of what she'd just done, glanced over at Booth with her pale blue eyes wide. She saw his hands begin to tremble, his fingers curling into a claw-like grip as his chest heaved with every breath he struggled to force into his chest.

_Oh, God, _she thought. _No...oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. What have I done? _She sensed the terror and confusion radiating off of him in waves as she felt herself suddenly get light-headed as she watched her normally-steady and even-keeled partner begin to spiral deeper into panic with every passing second. _Oh, God, Booth_—_no..._

Booth stared into the distance, unable to focus his gaze on the stainless steel and glass interior of the Medico-Legal Lab as his eyes darted around, desperately seeking some kind of anchor as a surge of images, sounds and feelings overwhelmed him. He turned around, his head swinging from one side to the other until he found her, watching him intently with her pale blue eyes that glistened under the lights of the lab. For a moment, he blinked and looked away, then brought his gaze back up to hers. His eyes narrowed, then widened again as he felt himself falling into her cool blue eyes, holding himself there as if he were looking for a fixed point of reference in the middle of an impossible navigation exercise and she was his horizon. He felt a wave of emotion wash over him as he felt his belly swirl with affection and warmth, an almost buoyant sensation that lifted him up, then dropped him again. It was as if he had in his arms everything he'd ever wanted, and his chest was bursting with happiness, then the very thing he wanted with every ounce of his being was suddenly ripped out of his hands and he could only watch helplessly as it was wrested from his grasp.

"_No," she told him, her eyes brimming with tears that shook loose with every blink of her eye._

_She shook her head and stared at him, her chest aching as she felt her heart crushed at the prospect of losing him, and this time she knew it would be for good. She knew she'd no choice, and that she would have to give him up, but she refused to give up more than she had already. As he stammered to bring forth the words he wanted so badly to say, she seethed in anguish and begged him to stop, wanting nothing more than to silence him, lest it be said she'd attained everything she ever wanted in the last few moments and hours before she lost it all when she lost him because he'd lose his memories and his old life in L.A. because of the bargain she'd struck with The One._

"_Don't tell me you love me," she pleaded with him, her voice raw as she choked out the words, each one she managed to utter cutting her as she spoke. "Not today," she almost begged him. Tilting his head at her in confusion, he didn't have to ask before she instantly clarified. "Wait, " she explained. "Please," she breathed. "Just wait. Wait until you can say it, and I can hear it, and we can be together to and be happy because of it?" She looked into his brown eyes, glistening with the moisture of his unshed tears, saw an abiding warmth in them, even as she saw his pupils dilate in a sudden flash that made his chocolate irises darken. His mouth fell open and gaped at her, his tongue hanging over his teeth as he breathed, his eyes blinking slowly and deliberately, and she could tell he was trying to hold himself together for her benefit despite the sadness and uncertainty that flickered behind his gaze. "Please? Please, Angel? I know I have no right to ask that of you after everything I've done, but...please. Just wait."_

_Angel sat there, staring at her, as his nostrils burned with tears he refused to let her see him shed. his jaw hardened for a moment as he felt a flash of indignant anger_—_not at the woman who sat beside him whose soft, plaintive lips parted slightly as her pale blue eyes watched his face expectantly_—_but rather at the vengeful forces of darkness that sought to rob him of every possible happiness he'd sought with this woman, however fleeting or incomplete. He craned his head back and stared at the textured white ceiling, wanting more than anything to howl in bitter anguish with every bit of breath he had at the prospect before him of losing forever the only thing that had ever made him really, truly happy:_

_Her._

_His mouth fell open again as he squeezed his eyes shut, trying desperately to hold back his tears, and he grunted as his hands formed fists so tight, his fingernails dug into the palms of his hands. He took a deep breath and lowered his gaze, closing his mouth as he looked deeply into her shimmering pale eyes. He felt an aching in his chest, a slow shearing sensation almost, as he yearned to say to her the three words he'd been holding inside of him for so long. But as he looked into her eyes, he saw the pain in them, and it nearly undid him. Then, as he looked just a bit deeper, there was also something else, something else that told him that, whether she said those words aloud, she felt them as deeply as he did and maybe saying them wasn't the important thing in that moment if that's what she needed from him. He felt his stomach clench again in his belly as the full picture of what he was about to lose finally came into sharp focus. Finally, reluctantly, he nodded his head._

"_Okay," he said quietly. "I won't tell you_—"

_Even as the words tumbled from his mouth, he saw Brennan let out a giant breath of relief. She tilted her head towards him and opened her mouth to speak. Angel knew that she was going to thank him, but for some reason, he knew he couldn't bear to hear such words come out of her mouth. Quickly, he lifted his index finger to her lips and sadly shook his head._

"_I said I wouldn't tell you, Bren," he said. "But I didn't say anything about not showing you how I feel about you." He studied her face for a moment, her blue eyes enthralling him as they always had, and he felt a new warmth blossom in his chest as he realized he'd made a good decision even if he needed to convince her of his plan. "Please, Bren? Let me show you what you are to me, that you will always remember, no matter what happens after this, what you mean to me, long after I no longer remember you, or us, or what we had, or what we gave to each other these last hundred and fifty years." He felt a tingling in his jaw as the tears threatened once more. "Let me show you, Bren. Let me prove to you what you are to me. Please..."_

_Finally, unable to resist him, not able to fight him any longer, she whispered with an almost imperceptible nod, "Yes." She paused for a beat, and then a tiny ray of hope broke through the overwhelming sadness he'd felt, as she smiled a small, sadly happy smile at him before she added, "That is...if you want me? Want me to share that with you? Then, yes. I want to feel it. Feeling it is more important than hearing it right now. So, you can show me, Angel. Let me feel it. Let me feel you. Please? Show me."_

"_I will," he said simply, feeling the hard, deep ache in his chest lessen somewhat as a warmth tingled through him, a wave of positivity washing over him and soothing the raw pain he'd been feeling inside. _

_The burning in his eyes and nose faded as he looked at her, and he felt his skin flush warm as he saw a bright glimmer in her eyes when her lips closed together, her words hanging in the air between them. His decision made, Angel stood up from the small sofa and looked down at Brennan, giving her a soft, gentle smile as he extended his hand to her. She accepted his hand with more than one reason for the gratitude she felt as he helped her to her feet, then led her back to her bedroom. No sooner had they walked through the doorway when he turned around abruptly and, releasing his grasp on her hand, and brought his hands up to cup her face and kissed her. Brennan's lips parted as Angel's tongue slipped between them, and he stroked his tongue along the inside of her lips before pulling away slightly. A frustrated murmur sounded from her, and he leaned in again to kiss her, his hips pressing against hers as she suddenly realized he had backed her up against her bedroom door. Once again his mouth claimed hers, and his tongue slid into her mouth, exploring and glancing against hers as their mouths came together and parted, then came together again in a wet, grasping dance. He moaned into their kiss as his hands roamed lower, sliding down the sides of her arms to her waist and finally resting on the gentle swell of her hips as he pulled away from her kiss, sucking on her lower lip for a moment before releasing it with a panting breath. _

"_I could kiss you all day," he whispered with a hushed sigh, leaning in and brushing his lips over her cheek to the flat space in front of her earlobe. His lips began to trace a path of feather-light touches along the sharp line of her square jaw to her chin, his tongue just barely making itself known as he worshipped her ivory skin with his lips. "All damn day and die a happy man," he told her in between kisses._

_With each touch of his lips and tongue on her neck, Brennan felt her skin flush and tingle as if it was on fire. She craned her head back and sighed as Angel's mouth moved to the notch at the base of her neck, his tongue darting out and drawing a soft, wet circle there before he moved on to drop clutching, damp kisses all along the length of her collarbone._

"_God, Angel," she breathed as his fingers slid under the spaghetti strap of her dark colored camisole, sliding the strap over the round edge of her shoulder to reveal a long, sloping curve that he promptly reacquainted himself with the soft pads of his fingers as his mouth moved southward from her clavicle to the warm, fleshy cleft between her breasts. "Take it off," she whispered, waiting for him to raise his head and pull a few inches away before raising her arms. "I never should've put it back on. Please?" she asked him. "I need you. Help me? Please?" _

_Angel smiled faintly at her plea and then reached for the bottom hem of her camisole, pulling it up over her head before tossing the garment carelessly to the side. As soon as she was rid of the camisole, she gently pressed him away from her and towards the bed as a feral grin cracked his handsome, rugged face. His brown eyes glittered with silent want and had, in just a matter of seconds, darkened to the color of pitch, and his mouth fell open with a scarcely audible sigh as he reached out for her again, this time hooking his thumbs under the waistband of her yoga pants as he twirled her around so that her back was to the bed. He glanced up at her once, licking his lips and narrowing his eyes as he tugged her pants over her hips and slid them down her thighs. Brennan smiled and wiggled her legs as she let the black pants shimmy over her knees and fall into a silent crumple on the floor before stepping out of them._

_Angel bent his head down and, cupping the soft, round underside of her breasts with his palms, brought his mouth to one of her nipples. The pebbly, rosy-colored flesh hardened the instant his lips closed around it, and he murmured into her skin as he teased the hard point of her nipple with the tip of his tongue. He pulled his mouth away, glancing up into her gleaming blue eyes for a moment before returning to his work, closing his lips around her other nipple and laving it with the broad flat of his tongue before drawing it into his mouth with a hard suck._

"_Oh, God," she groaned in pleasure as his tongue wrapped around her nipple, causing a flash of pleasure to shoot through her as her head lolled to the side. "God, Angel, you..." But, her thought remained unfinished as he gave her one last hard suck in response, causing Brennan's eyes to squeeze shut and her head to loll to the side as he breathing increased._

_He only murmured in reply as he nipped the hardened point of her nipple with his teeth, then soothed away the faint sting with a swipe of his warm tongue before tugging at her flesh with a gentle, wet suck. He suckled her this way for a couple of minutes until the gradual peaking of her sighs and moans and the vague swaying of her stance left no doubt that she was very close to release. Angel opened his eyes and released her nipple from his mouth, flashed his eyebrows with a sparkling, toothy smile and urged her towards the bed._

_Brennan allowed herself to fall backwards onto the bed, crawling crab-like towards the head of the bed as she watched her dark-eyed, dark-haired lover follow, stalking towards her on all fours as he made his way across the bed to cover her body with his. As Angel nudged her legs apart with his knee, and quickly took his place between her thighs, Brennan brought her hands up to his waist, caressing his smooth, olive skin under her fingers, leaning her head back a little and taking a deep breath, soaking in the sensation of feeling his body, warm and deliciously heavy, covering hers._

_His heart ached at the thought of forgetting her, but he knew from the gravity of her earlier words that there was no doubt but that she was right, and that everything he knew and everything he'd been for two hundred fifty years, including the century and a half of their own on-again, off-again but ever-deepening affair, would vanish from his mind. All he had was this one day to show her what she meant to him, that she would never forget him. In the emotional tempest that roiled inside of him, Angel wasn't sure why it was so important to him that she not forget him, or how he felt for her, even though he would surely forget her and everything they'd shared between them, but as he stared into her eyes, he knew what he wanted to do._

_He brought his hand up and held her face gently against his palm as he leaned in, his mouth hovering over hers for a few moments before he kissed her. Murmuring into their kiss, his lips grasped at hers as their tongues grappled for dominance in the wet, warm space they shared between them, and he pressed his lips hard against hers with a soft, almost inaudible grunt as he drew a circle around the tip of her tongue with his and then pulled away again._

"_Angel," she whispered, her voice peaking plaintively as her brow creased with frustration. "Please..."_

_But still, he didn't say a single word. _

_He dropped feather-light kisses on her chin and down the side of her neck to her collarbone, pausing at the base of her neck as she sighed at feeling his delicate touches, then continued to move down, his lips brushing over the space between her breasts and on down to her belly button, which he kissed gently, letting the tip of his tongue dart out and glance lightly against the rim of her navel for the briefest possible second before moving on._

_Angel's chin passed over her crisp curls as his hands drew along the insides of her thighs, his thumbs hooking under her knees as he took his place between her legs. He took a deep breath, filling his nostrils with the sweet, musky scent of her arousal and the tangy, vaguely saline, almost mossy smell of their earlier joining before bringing his hands up to touch her most intimate flesh, peeling apart her folds with his thumbs and allowing himself several long moments to admire the way she glistened in anticipation of his touch. He made a humming sound in his throat and then dove in, drawing his tongue along the length of her opening and tasting the tart, sweet cream there**, **flavored as it was with his own sweet and slightly salty essence from before. Brennan gritted her teeth and sucked in a sharp breath at feeling him tuck the point of his tongue inside of her, then withdraw again with what she swore was a snicker. _

"_Oh, my God, Angel," she sighed as she felt him curl his tongue and penetrate her as deeply as he could, a low growl sounding in his chest as he lapped and sucked up her juices. _

"_Ohhhh, fuck, Angel," she groaned. "Ohh, shit...fuck..." She gritted her teeth again at the intense sensation that surged through her at his attentions. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."_

_She squirmed, twisting her hips against the sheet beneath her as she arched her head back and grunted as a sharp jolt of pleasure rolled down her spine and curled her toes. Just when she swore she couldn't take it any longer, he pulled away, lifting his head and looking up at her, his chin glistening slightly with evidence of her desire as a grin spread across his lips._

_Yet even then, he didn't speak._

_Brennan saw a flicker in his dark eyes and his lips purse for a moment, then he narrowed his eyes and lowered his head again, closing his lips around her hardening clit, applying the briefest touch of suction before flicking the point of his tongue over her flesh. _

"_Ohh...fuck...ohhhh...ohhhhhh..." she moaned at him again as her back arched off the mattress and she jerked her hips forward, pressing against Angel's mouth as she cried out in release. She fisted the sheets and leaned her head back, realizing she was falling over the edge and couldn't do a thing about it even if she'd wanted to, not that she did. She stared at the white knockdown texture of her bedroom ceiling for a moment, clouded as it was by the familiar haze of bright blue light as the last wave of her orgasm inundated her and then gently faded away as she once again became aware of things around her once more. _

_Angel's eyes were there waiting to meet hers as she brought her gaze back to the handsome face between her legs. Brennan smiled faintly as she tried to decipher the expression in his deep brown eyes as he pressed his lips into a firm line, as if he had just decided something important. As her powers of reason seemed to filter back to her in the moments after her release, her brow furrowed and she puzzled why her once frustratingly loquacious lover remained silent as he brought himself up once again to hover over her._

_He leaned heavily into his hands as he looked down at her, his chest filling with warmth as he felt a faint burning sensation in his nostrils. Her chest heaved as her breath rose and fell, and for a moment he was transfixed by the sight of her dusky nipples moving with each ragged breath. She sighed, and the sound of her voice snapped him out of his daze, bringing his attention back to her eyes which glittered brightly as he felt the vague electric charge prick at his skin as her eyes flashed brightly one last time before she seemed to sink a bit into the pillows. _

_Angel propped himself up on one arm and reached down, closing his hand around his rigid arousal and pulling the skin back taut. He glanced up at her, swiping his swollen tip over the length of her opening a couple of times, then drew his hips back and looked deeply into her eyes as he pressed into her. He bit the inside of his lip at the incredible sensation of being inside of her, a feeling he'd experienced countless times over the years he'd known her but which struck him each time as unexpected, the all-encompassing pleasure of it always catching him unawares no matter how many times he knew her this way. _

_He slid into her until he was seated all the way to the hilt, holding himself there for several seconds, his mouth falling open in a lazy grin as he shut his eyes and withdrew, pulling nearly all the way out of her before taking a deep breath and stroking into her again. He opened his eyes and watched as her enchantingly beautiful face slackened as he slid into her, his way made incredibly easy by how impossibly wet she was for him. _

_With each driving stroke, Angel tried to bury himself as deeply inside of her as he possibly could, so deep that he would never find his way out of her again. He wanted to lose himself in her, to dissolve himself, body and soul, into her completely, so that she would know that he was irretrievably part of her just as she was a part of him, a part of her soul so tightly woven into his that he had trouble remembering what it was like before she was cleaved to him. _

_He rolled his hips back and thrust hard into her, his jaw held firm as his eyes closed again, and he felt her begin to tighten around him. He jerked into her with a soft grunt, unable to shake the feeling that he wanted to mark her somehow the way he felt himself marked by her. Though he understood what she had told him—that he would not remember a thing of her come morning when the single twenty-four hours that they'd been granted ended—as he lost himself in the exquisite feel of her each time he came into her felt her warm, moist folds open like a flower to accept him, he felt certain that the way she had marked him was something that not even her mystical bargain could erase. As he came into her, again and again as he had a thousand times before in the century and a half he had known her, he was hopeful that he would always know her, somehow, even if he didn't know who she was. _

_He made love to her that afternoon with everything he had to give so that she would not forget him, but a voice deep inside of him murmured and he hoped that the time would come that they would cross one another's paths again and that when that happened, he would somehow know her. He felt his heart racing as each stroke came harder and faster on the heels of the one that preceded it, and he felt as if everything was in flux around him, the room spinning around his head, the bed beneath him vanishing as he felt suddenly weightless, the entire universe collapsing into a space only as big as their two bodies, merged into one as he drove into her, again and again relentlessly as his silence gave way to a soaring swirl of peaking groans and low, rumbling growls. The hairs on his arms stood on end as the energy between them crackled again, filling the air with a positive charge that pulsed and throbbed each time he sent himself into her. Finally, as he felt her body clenching around him and quiver wildly in the wake of her second release, he himself fell into a tightly-coiled spiral towards his own orgasm, that energy cast its familiar blue light and pricked at his skin before flashing brightly as he smiled faintly, jerking up into her one last time before he shattered, flooding her with his hot seed as a long moan passed between his lips._

_As he surrendered himself to the mind-numbing weightlessness of his release, he finally spoke, murmuring her name as if it were some sort of sacred chant:_

"_Bren...Bren...Bren...oh God, Bren...oh, Bren...Bren...oh, Bren..."_

_He held himself as deeply and firmly inside of her as he could as the last pulses of his orgasm faded, and after a few moments, he collapsed onto her, crushing her beneath his weight until he regained his senses and rolled off of her. _

_He sucked down a deep breath as he felt his heart racing in his chest in the wake of their love. Angel turned his head and looked at her, his dark eyes glistening with feeling as he gazed into her blue orbs. Her forehead was faintly creased as she stared back at him, and he could see her thoughts flickering behind her eyes. Rolling onto his side, he drew his hand up and gently cupped the side of her face, slowly stroking his big thumb over the delicate line of her cheekbone. _

"_Oh, Bren..."_

The warm, chest-filling sensation of attainment in one moment and of emptiness in the next gave way to another rush of feelings and images, his mind echoing with the sound of two voices speaking, one of which emerged from the muffled memory and resonated in his mind for a few seconds before Booth realized that one of the voices was his own. The somber tone of his voice ate away at him as it rang out in the sudden gush of the memory, and he felt his throat tighten, a hard lump resisting his anxious swallow as he looked down and saw a pair of hands—large, strong, olive-skinned and veiny like his own—close around fistfuls of stiff fabric.

"_You don't have to go," she said, her voice a quiet plea as she stood there leaning against the doorframe at the entrance to her bedroom watching him back his meager belongings into a large canvas duffle bag._

"_You know I do, Bren," he replied, reaching his hand into the top of the bag and mashing its contents down before cinching up the seabag's drawstring and double-knotting it. He picked up the bag to test its heft and balance, then set it back down on the floor. "You know I have to go. You have to go, too. You want to go to Mexico."_

_"I never said that," Brennan told him with a frustrated sigh. "You know I never did."_

_"You didn't have to...," he smiled sadly. "You don't have to. I know you want to go. And I know if I stay here, you won't go, and I can't go that to you, Bren. I don't want to hold you back anymore. You've got to follow your dreams, Bren, even if that path takes you away from me."_

_He sighed as he saw her pale blue eyes glisten with unshed tears. He'd been thinking about it for not quite a year, ever since she'd come home from the university one afternoon, her eyes alight with excitement about a series of excavations underway on the Yucatán Peninsula of southeastern Mexico. It wasn't the first time she'd talked about Mexico, but that afternoon, as she walked into the apartment, the emotion he heard in her voice wasn't a passing wistfulness, but a genuine excitement. A few months after that, a letter had come in the mail from a colleague, Edgar, postmarked in Mérida. She'd read the letter to him, her voice curious but yet constrained somehow, edged with a jealous frustration that became clearer to him as she read the last page of the missive. _

_He could tell as she read that she missed her fieldwork. In the five years since he'd moved into her Chicago apartment, she'd only participated in a handful of short field activities, each of which had lasted no more than two-to-four days long apiece. Each time, he'd joined her, and he'd been able to see firsthand how happy and how excited she became when she was around other archaeologists and anthropologists doing what she loved. _

_He could tell from the way Brennan's voice wavered when she talked about Mérida as she read the letter that she yearned to be back in the field again for more than just a long weekend. He'd asked her about it, but she dismissed his concerns. As the months went by, Angel realized that she had stopped talking about the Mexican excavations, and about field work in general, but he could feel the tension as it became clearer with each passing day that she was deliberately avoiding the subject as if she was trying to put it out of her mind._

_After a few months, Angel had confronted her about it again, but Brennan had shrugged it off, insisting she was happy with the way things were, doing what she did during the day and spending her nights with him. Five years it had been since she'd pulled him off the cold, windblown streets of Chicago and taken him into her home and her life. That Halloween night, they came together as two disparate people joined in a bed sharing the pleasures of one another's flesh, but when they pulled apart again, a part of her soul was cleaved to him forever. The part of her soul that hummed and murmured inside of him gave him the self-awareness and insight to work his way to the other side of the mind-rending despair that had driven him to the very brink of suicide the night she'd found him rummaging in a pile of wood scraps behind a meatpacking warehouse on Halsted Street. But as the weeks and months ticked by, he knew that, as happy as she was with him and what they shared between them, a part of her wanted more. He knew she was holding herself back—he could feel it in the way she touched him, the faint waver in her voice, the almost undetectable tension in her limbs as they made love in her bed. He knew there were things she wanted from her life that he could not give her, and as he watched her suppress her desires for those things, he knew what he had to do. He had to let her pursue her dreams. And he knew the only way she would do it is if he forced her hand. So, with a heaviness in his heart, he did. _

"_You can come with me," she said, cocking her head to the side as she watched him lean his heavy duffel against the foot of the bed, the bed they'd shared for five long years. **"**Me going to Mexico doesn't mean you have to leave..." She sighed. "You've lived all over the world, Angel. We've been a lot of places together, you and me, and even more in the times we were apart. What's the big difference about this one? We can just add this to the list. You don't have to go. You don't have to leave me."_

"_No," he said. "I'm not going back to sleeping under the stars, Bren. When I did it, before...I'm not going back to that—sleeping out in the open, scrounging around for animals to feed off of because there's no butcher shops or slaughterhouses from which I can get blood, curling up under bridges, in caves and barns to escape the sun during the days. I did that in Montana, when I was in Missoula, and I did it here in Illinois, when I made my way up through the countryside from St. Louis." He paused, shrugging away a memory before he continued. "I slept on the streets, here in Chicago, for years. Looking back, I'm not even sure how I did it. Guess I really didn't do it very well. I damn near starved to death doing it." He shook his head and sighed. "It's too hard, Bren—living that way, being what I am. I have to live in a city, a real city, and sleep in a bed between four walls." _

"_Angel," she said, her voice edging higher as she felt a ball of panic settle into the pit of her stomach at the thought of him leaving her after they'd been together so long, and she tried desperately to find a way to dissolve it. _

_For five years, she'd fallen asleep each night with his arm curled around her naked waist, and woken up each morning to the sound of the tiny murmurs he made in his sleep. She'd grown used to sitting with him at their dining room table, eating her dinner as he drank his own, a couple of tall glasses of pig's blood or cattle blood—whatever she could pick up from the Ukrainian butcher around the corner from her apartment—and discussing her day or current events over a nightcap, be it a glass of Irish whiskey or a glass of amaretto, before crawling into bed, making love once or twice before falling asleep in his arms again. Their lives became had become woven together almost as tightly as their souls in that five years, and the thought of going back to the life she had before that—when she woke alone, dined alone, drank alone, and slept alone—made her ill with sadness and dread since she didn't want to be alone anymore...and wasn't really certain she knew how to be alone anymore even if she did. They'd built a life together, somehow, and even if they'd stumbled into it by accident, she realized in that moment that she didn't want to let it go._

"_They have cities in Mexico, Angel," she tried again. "I know Mérida isn't Chicago or London, but it's big enough. You could rent a pensión. I'll have to come in from the field from time to time for supplies, and we can see each other then. And, besides, the work will stop when the rains come in the summer, so we'll be able to—"_

_Angel rolled his jaw from one side to the other as he thought about it, about what she was saying. He'd never been to Mérida—his own travels through Mexico over the years had taken him through the more western parts of the country, through Mexico City, Guadalajara, Juarez and even as far as what was then the brand-new town of Mexicali, just across the border from the Imperial Valley where a land development company was trying to entice farmers to settle in what was otherwise a rather desolate desert basin several hours' drive east of San Diego. The eastern part of Mexico seemed interesting to him—so green and lush compared to the dry, rocky wastes of the west—and a part of him thought about whether he could made a life for himself there. _

_It was a tempting thought, at first. Very tempting._

_He imagined Brennan in a flowy white sun dress and broad-brimmed hat going to the _mercado_, visiting the local _carneceria _and asking the butcher for pig's blood: "_¿Tiene usted algo sangre de cerdo?_" He imagined what it would look like to wake up with her in the pre-dawn twilight in a room with white-washed adobe walls, snuggled in bed with the mosquito-netting waving gently in the breeze. He thought of what she would look like, coming in from the field in her long-sleeved cotton field dress, a bit of dust from her journey clung to her sweat-damp cheeks as she chattered excitedly about what they'd uncovered in the six weeks since he'd seen her. Then he wondered what he would do with himself, an Irish-American vampire, living in a small city in the jungles of southeastern Mexico, waiting week upon week upon week for his archaeologist lover to return to him._

"_No, Bren," he said firmly. He opened his mouth, inclined for a moment to tell her that if anyone could get him to go to such a place and to live in such a way, it would be her and only her. But he then thought better of it since he knew if she knew of any weakness in his resolve, she'd be merciless in her tenacity to break him down until her submitted to her will. And, on this one thing, that was something that he knew couldn't happen. He needed to be strong for her so she could do what she needed to do and travel down the path that fate was pushing her down even if it meant he couldn't go with her for that part of the journey. "You and me—we each have a destiny," he said. "Yours is taking you to Mexico to learn about ancient civilizations, and mine...well..." _

_He stared at his stuffed seabag, the white fabric of which was soiled and worn from the dozens of journeys it had seen, slung over the shoulder of the old merchant seaman, O'Reilly, who'd sold it to him for a quarter at the Irish pub a few blocks from Brennan's apartment. He scraped his fingernail over the stiff fabric and thought of the journey that he was about to embark on, but how the bag had been filled with things he'd bought because of or by Brennan. _

"_I don't know what mine is, exactly," he said, "but it's calling me to New York." He fussed with the drawstrings as he tried to explain himself. "I spent some time there, when I first got to America, you know—after I came through Ellis Island. I don't know why, Bren, but I have this gut feeling...like I have unfinished business there." He looked up at her hopefully. "Maybe you can come visit me, when things wind down for the season there, though? I think I'd like that if you came up to see me in New York. New York is great in the summertime, Bren—we can take walks in Central Park after sunset, see shows on Broadway. I can take you into some of the neighborhoods. I gotta take you to this pub, McSorley's, where I made my first friend here in America. Paddy McKeegan—he's still tending bar there today. They serve this great brown ale, just like back in the old country."_

_Angel smiled at the thought of the last time he was in McSorley's and how Paddy had given him all his drinks for free. But then he looked up and saw the sad look in her pale eyes and shook his head as the long look on her face chased away his smile and replaced it with a frown. He bit down on the inside of his lip as he felt her uncertainty. He heard the rhythm of her breathing shift and the speed of her heartbeat flutter, and he saw her moist eyes brimming with tears. He swallowed and took a step towards her, but did not reach out to touch her. _

"_Bren," he said quietly. "It's not that I don't want to be with you. Or that I don't want you. God, no. It's just..." He swallowed again, looked away as he tried to gather his thoughts into an articulable package. "It's just—you have things you want to do, that you have to do, places you want to go, discoveries that you want to make. And...well...Bren, I don't think you can do those things , you know, that you can live out that destiny you deserve, if you knew I was sitting there in Mérida, waiting for you. You deserve a chance to have the life you're fated to have, and not to have me hold you back from it. I believe in us, Bren, I do—I swear I do—and someday, I know we'll find our way back to being in the same place at the same time, sharing a single life. I don't know how or why I know that, but for some funny reason, I do. I just don't think that time is now. You need to go out there into the universe and make your destiny, Bren. I'll always be with you, even if I'm not actually with you. And I'll always be here, waiting for you, when you're done. I swear."_

_He watched her pale eyes flicker and darken as her lips formed a tight pursed line. She looked away for several long moments, then brought her gaze back up to meet his with a quick nod. He picked up his duffel and slung it over his shoulder with a quiet grunt. _

"_You know it has to be this way," he said, walking towards her. "You're an amazing woman, Bren. You have an incredible gift, but, just sitting around here with me, it's killing you. I can see it with mine own eyes, lass. You need to get out there and do your thing. Let that talent of yours blossom as we both know it can and go off and do what you need to do."_

_She shook her head in response to what they both knew was a very valid point before she looked away without saying a single word._

"_Come on, Bren," Angel said, his voice low and even though he felt a painful ache in his chest, tearing at him from the inside out. "You know what we are to one another. We're bound forever, you and I, no matter what happens, lass. You know that. No matter where we go or what happens. We may be two people, with two bodies, but we're one soul. You know it. Don't you?"_

_He stared at her for a long minute, but still remained silent._

_Trying again, he reminded her, "Think, Bren. If nothing else I know that you felt it—even just this morning, aye? When we made love? I felt it, and I know you did, too. We always do because it's always been that way for us. You're a part of me, Bren, and I think you know that more than just a simple part of me will always be with you. You know that. No matter how far apart we are or how many miles separate us."_

_He brought his free hand up to cup her square, slender jaw and pulled her lips to his. _

_Brennan enjoyed his kiss for a minute and then reluctantly pulled away before she parted and rested her chin against his shoulder before she whispered with a slight sniffle, "I won't do it."_

_He felt his chest tighten as he heard the tears scraping at the edges of her voice, and he felt the tenuous hold he had on his resolve crumbling just a bit further. "Bren_—"

"_I won't do it, Angel," she said, a flash of the stubbornness that he'd always simultaneously adored and been infuriated by over the years brightening her eyes. "I don't...I just..."_

_Brennan's voice trailed off as she looked at him. Her eyes skimmed the contours of his face—his high cheekbones, his heavy brow that hung over his dark brown eyes, his strong, faintly pock-marked jaw, the dimples in his cheeks as he gave her a forced smile, the cleft in his chin—and she remembered how this same face had looked so drawn when she found him that first night, his now-full cheeks sunken with hunger and dark circles hanging below his sparkling eyes. He was stronger now, both in body and in spirit. She'd nursed him back to physical health and, long after, watched him as he grew into himself again, finding his voice and his confidence that at first seemed irretrievably lost. Brennan watched him as he stood there with his canvas seabag, blinking back at her as the silence between them slowly began to unnerve him a little. She thought how the man she'd once known as Angelus, who had challenged her and infuriated her, had evolved into a different man, a better man, a man who she'd come to care for deeply. She felt the ache inside of her, but she couldn't deny the resolve she saw in his face as he stared back at her. Still, she knew that she couldn't let him go without some type of fight._

"_I'm not doing it," she repeated, her jaw set firmly as she dug in her heels. "I'm not losing you again, Angel. It's not happening. I'm not doing it."_

"_Bren," he sighed, as he recognized her tone of voice. "Come on, now. You_—"

"_No," she repeated with a firm shake of her head. "You can leave me if you want, but I won't go_—"

"_Bren," he tried again. "Please don't make this any harder than it has to be. Please?"_

_Looking up at him, a thought occurred to Brennan. "Fine," she said._

"_What?" Angel asked, his head jerking as he looked at her and a look of confusion crossed his handsome face. "What do you mean 'fine'?" After a moment, he narrowed his eyes suspiciously, quite certain that her apparent acquiescence came at a price. There was always a catch with her, he knew. She never really gave in, and never retreated all the way. He knew that morning was no different._

"_You want me to go," she said. "I want to stay unless you come with me. So the only thing I can see that solves this is we have to compromise."_

"_Compromise?" he asked. "Bren, I know we've both learned to compromise these last five years, mmm? It's in no small part how we've managed to get through it, sharing a space and a life the way we have. We're both too hard-headed to have gotten through it any other way, but..." He brought his hand up and tousled the back of his hair. "So, what's the catch?" he asked warily. _

"_We both know that to compromise, we both have to get something and we both have to give something up," she replied. "Right?"_

"_Right," he nodded tentatively. "I guess. But we both know you've got to do this thing, and I've got to go so you can do it."_

"_So, since you want me to go, I'll go...but I'm not going unless you promise me," she explained. "You have to promise me..in six months? If you promise me that you'll come to me in Mexico, then okay. I won't like it. But, okay. But, if not, I can't...I can't go away not knowing when I'm going to see you again. I just can't. Okay?"_

_He was quiet for a minute and then nodded his head with a slight smile softening the serious look that had haunted his handsome face since they'd first begun the difficult discussion earlier that morning. His smile fell open into a laugh and he ran his hands through his hair again as he felt a wave of relief wash over him. He cocked his head to the side and looked at her, then took a couple of steps forward to close the last couple of feet of distance between them. He brought his hands up to cradle her face between them as he leaned in and kissed her gently._

"_Okay."_

Booth's back straightened a little as a flash of duty-bound pride fluttered in his belly in the fleeting half-second before a heavy, surging wave of regret crashed over him, slamming down on him as he felt a the distant pulse of a familiar ache, not unlike the dark swirl of lightheadedness that had visited him from time to time over the years as he remembered the faces of the men he had killed behind the scope of his sniper's rifle or on the other side of his FBI-issue .40 caliber Glock 23. This time, he could swear there was something vaguely intimate about the kill, as if he could actually taste the blood of the life he'd taken.

But there was something else that struck him as familiar—the thin-lipped mouth, square jaw, and soft, fleshy earlobes weighed down by gently-swinging silver earrings—before he recognized the one thing that set this particular face apart from all of the others.

_Her eyes._

Her cool, dark-rimmed blue-gray eyes that seemed unspeakably expansive, like a wide, rippling sea that made him feel as if he were drowning in them.

"_You got drafted?" she asked him, her voice a bit incredulous as she watched as he plopped himself down in the dark brown leather easy chair in the corner of her living room, the one she'd had made for him in Mérida and had kept in her apartment for him for almost twenty years, and leaned his head back with a heavy sigh._

"_Not exactly," he replied as he looked up and met her curious stare as her bright blue eyes looked at him in askance. "Kind of more like press-ganged."_

_Brennan arched an eyebrow. "I don't know what that means," she said, her brow creasing slightly as she tilted her head at him. "What happened?" _

_Angel grunted and lowered his chin, leveling his gaze to meet hers. "They came into my apartment," he explained. "I'm not sure how they found me, or how they got in. After there were all those break-ins in my part of the East Village, I changed my locks."_

"_Again?" she asked. "You got double-deadbolts put on the last time that happened. I haven't seen a wooden door that thick since I moved out of my home in Cheapside, Angel. I still can't believe the New York police can't get that situation under control."_

_Angel shrugged. "I figured my next-door neighbors, the Ostrovskys, having that big snarly dog would help keep people away, since he starts barking every time someone walks near my door, but I dunno. They still managed to get in." _

"_Who?" she asked, her confusion growing since she'd rarely known Angel to ever be put successfully in any position to do anything he didn't want to do unless the compulsion was significant. "I don't understand."_

"_I don't know," he muttered, raking his hand through his hair in frustration as he felt his eyes drawn to the wrinkles that creased her white forehead. He felt a tingling in his fingertips as he wanted to reach out and stroke his fingers across her brow, to smooth it and to feel her warm, silky skin. "Said they were with some damn government agency calling itself the Demon Research Initiative. There were a bunch of them, two of them big guys, armed with stakes, and the way they were holdin' 'em, I had a pretty good idea they'd used them before. Then there was this general or whatever, and he says to me, 'Sit down, son—we need to talk.' Then he goes and proceeds to tell me how my country needs all the able-bodied men it can get to fight the war. My country? I mean, what the fuck, Bren?"_

_Brennan considered his question for a moment, not knowing if it was rhetorical or not. As Angel continued to look at her, his brow furrowed and his eyes wide in expectation, she decided she needed to say something even if she wasn't certain she was saying the right thing given the tense and edgy mood he seemed to be in since his arrival an hour before. The glass of Jameson's whiskey she'd given him seemed like it hadn't done much to take the edge off, though it did seem to settle him to the point where he could finally form complete sentences and stay in one place for more than ten seconds as opposed to just growling, grumbling, and pacing restlessly as he had done when he'd first walked into her apartment. _

"_You have lived here for the better part of forty years, Angel," she said. "I can see their point." She fell silent for a moment, noting the way his eyebrows were knit low and hard over his dark, deep-set eyes. "But, that's not what this issue was, was it? Because we both know you've never shrunk away from a fight, Angel, in all the years I've known you. You've defended my honor on more than one occasion when we've been in a tavern and some smart-ass decided to horn in between us and make a move on me. Never mind the bar-room fisticuffs you've gotten yourself into in my absence, mmm?" She paused and a smile came to her face. "Or, even the pugilistic sports you've enjoyed over the years." She felt a shiver run down her spine at the memory of the fight she'd watched at Covent Garden in 1860, the first night she'd laid eyes on him. Her face sobered again. "You've gone to war before, Angel. You fought in the Great War, didn't you? I remember you telling me about the time you spent in the trenches on the Western Front. At the Somme, wasn't it?" _

"_Royal Engineers, yeah," he sighed. "252nd Tunneling Company. I spent six months underground, digging tunnels under German trenches and fortifications and blowing them up." He rolled his eyes. "I'm not even sure why I signed up," he said. "One minute, I was in Londonderry, on one of my walkabouts, trolling from pub to pub, trying to drink away the pain, you know, and the next thing I know I'm on my way to France. Maybe I was bored, I dunno. I guess I just wanted to break up the monotony and it seemed like a good idea since it was what everyone else was doing at the time..." He shook his head. "I just wanted to feel normal," he said with a heavy sigh. "But this war—I just want to stay away from that world, you know. Europe. And all the shit I did there. All the memories. Every inch of it reeks with bad memories for me, Bren. Every time my heel hits the ground when I'm there, a dozen memories come to mind of what I did in that place when..." He closed his eyes and sighed. "When I raged there—before. I figure I've seen enough dead bodies crumpled on the cobblestone to last me a few more centuries."_

_She watched as his eyebrows knit even more firmly over his eyes as he spoke. "Look, Angel, I know you didn't want to go fight the war...this war...but—"_

_He interrupted her with a sharp sigh. "Bren, you know that I came to America to get away from Europe, the Old World, and make a new life for myself. New life, with new memories, right? I don't want to go back or to have to look back. I've spent the last forty-five years trying to forget that world, back there, and all the...all the things I did back then." He leaned his head back and sighed. "So, no, when they came and said they wanted me to go help 'em fight the war over there in Europe, I didn't want anything to do with it. I like my life here. I'm finally starting to not be sick at the mere thought of the man who I am today. But if I go back, I risk losing all that. I mean, honestly, If I'd have wanted to throw myself back into that cesspool of shit, I'd ha' done it long before now, and we both know that you know that already." _

"_But that's not what's really bothering you, is it?" she said. "What happened?"_

_Angel's jaw shifted from one side to the other as he shook his head, his eyes gazing over Brennan's shoulder to something outside of the window of her apartment. He watched the rain as it came down in heavy, rhythmic sheets, intermittently splattering against the window as the wind gusts picked up and faded again. The sound of the rain swelled loud as it fell so hard and in such a heavy downpour that it obscured the roiling gray surface of Lake Michigan in an opaque curtain of water. After a few moments, the wind let up a bit, and the rain seemed to lighten, and the cold, dreary surface of the giant lake emerged once more to dominate the view from her living room window. His eyes were glassy and unfocused as he began to speak again._

"_I did it," he said grimly, unable any longer to hold in the secret that felt as if it was burning a hole in his chest. The pain had been eating at him for four long weeks, and he'd felt it, sour and acrid, eroding him from the inside out. As ever, in times of trouble and distress, he'd sought her out and come to her, and now he came there for the real reason that he'd always sought her out time and time again through the years—for comfort and absolution. Her voice, low and sympathetic, and her unfailing insistence, finally pierced his reluctance and, after a moment of sharp burning, began to draw the poison out of him, like bloodletter's fleam. "I fucking did it," he snapped with a self-disgusted rasp. "I didn't want to, but...I didn't have any goddamn choice in the matter. If I didn't do it, they'd all have died, and the, well, I'm not supposed to get into details, but, the enemy intelligence they'd captured would have been lost, too, and—"_

_Brennan took a breath and spoke carefully, each syllable falling slowly and evenly after the one that preceded it. "What did you do, Angel?" she inquired, her chest tightening as she saw the tension in his chiseled features. Seeing his reticence finally collapse under the weight of a guilt she didn't understand, but which she knew tore raggedly at the edges of his voice, she sat back and prepared to listen as he unloaded the burden that he carried. She tried to read the emotions in his face, but the overwhelming feeling that rolled off of him in dark waves was that of self-loathing the likes of which she had not seen him exhibit since the first night she saw him, huddled, freezing, half-starved and despairing on the streets just a few dozen blocks away. "What happened?"_

"_I turned him," he said in a broken voice as he met her inquiring blue eyes. "Lawson," he told her. With each word, more of the story started to stumble from his lips in a way that allowed Brennan somewhat to piece together what was happening. "I had to...the German...he stabbed him...gutted him, really...and Lawson...see, he was the only one who knew how to get the sub's propulsion motor going again. None of the other sailors had a damn clue, and..."_

_Brennan pressed her lips together firmly as his voice trailed off. Once the words had tumbled from him, she felt a sudden light-headedness wash over her as she realized the reason for his paralyzing self-hatred. A part of her wanted to run to him and pull him into an embrace, but as she watched him, his jaw tensing and relaxing as waves of emotion seemed to wash over him, inundating him the way the heavy, loud sheets of cold rain doused the city outside, she held back, wanting to give him a chance to shed the burden of his emotional cargo._

"_You did what you had to do, Angel," Brennan said gently, trying to alleviate some of the guilt and pain she knew he felt over his actions. "Isn't this the way of war?" she asked, her voice soft as she hoped that she wasn't going to say the wrong thing that might send him further into a spiral of brooding melancholy that she knew he had a tendency to drown in at times if she wasn't there to pull him out of it. "You know that as well as anyone. Sometimes one man must give his life that others might be saved. You saved the lives of the other sailors on that submarine, didn't you? It's no different than an officer who has to order his men to charge up a hill knowing that he's going to lose some of them to enemy fire in the process." She paused for a beat, considered what she'd just said, and then added with a firm nod, "You did the right thing."_

_Angel shook his head defiantly. _

_Narrowing her eyes as she sensed her lover's inherent stubbornness, Brennan repeated, "Yes, Angel, you did."_

"_How can you even say that?" he asked her. "It's not like you know all the details even."_

_Shaking her head, Brennan responded, "It doesn't matter. All I need to know is you, Angel, and I know that you always do the right thing, so that's good enough for me."_

"_No," he growled. "No, Bren. I didn't do the right thing. Not this time. It's...well, it's just different, okay?" _

_He covered his eyes with his hands and rubbed them with the heels of his palms as he sighed loudly. Dropping his hands to his lap, he arched his head back and swallowed hard, then shook his head. "You know," he said sardonically, "I knew I was in deep shit when I get onto that submarine and who's the first person I run into? For fuck's sake, I should have seen that as an auspicious sign, you know. Right off the goddamned bat." _

"_What?" she asked, her voice tinged with suspicion as she sensed in his voice an edge she heard only in regards to one person in all the years she'd known him. Still, she asked for clarification, "Who are you talking about, Angel?"_

"_Spike," Angel growled. "It was fuckin' Spike, Bren."_

"_Spike?" she said with a furrowed brow. "I don't understand. What was he doing there?"_

_Angel's eyes narrowed and his jaw hardened instantly as he answered. "He was wearing an SS officer's leather jacket when I saw him," he said. "A fucking SS uniform, with the swastika and everything. 'Cause he thought it looked cool, I guess. You know, this is why I wanted to stay outta this fuckin' Old World war, to stay away from all the scum and derelicts from that Old World. But we all know I've always had no fuckin' luck at all. But I mean, it fuckin' figures, right? The first time I even take a single fuckin' step back towards Europe, I end up finding Spike of all fuckin' people." He paused, letting some of his anger dissipate as he tried to retain a tight control on all the anger he felt, and when he finally look backed to meet Brennan's eyes, he added with a shake of his head, "You know, the last time I'd seen him, in Jinan, in Shandong province in 1901, he was riding off into the sunset with Darla and Dru after he'd just bagged himself a Slayer, leaving my sorry ass stuck in the middle of a rebellion with a big fuckin' target on my head 'cause I was a foreigner. What a fuckin' mess that was."_

"_I'm sorry," she said, only just beginning to understand the toll of the events that he'd started to tell her about. Longing to bring him some ease, she tilted her head as she asked, "Tell me what I can do to help."_

_He pressed his lips together firmly as he clenched his jaw, shaking his head as he tried to blink away the unpleasant memory. "There's nothing, Bren. I-I...it's fine. Really. I just never should've gotten involved in the fuckin' first place, when those assholes came into my apartment in New York," he said. "I should've fought 'em off, when they came to me. Maybe I could've..."_

"_I'm sure you did the right thing, Angel," she said, trying to bring the conversation back on the rails. "You're a good man. You did what you had to do, the way men have to do in times of war."_

"_You have no idea, Bren," he snapped. "No idea. This was different. What I did, what I did to him? It wasn't the same." He sighed, staring at his hands as they gripped the arms of the chair, then looked out the window again. "See, Bren? What I did, to this kid, it wasn't Tennyson's 'Charge of the Light Brigade,' alright? There was nothing romantic about it. Not a fuckin' thing. Look, the men who fall in battle charging up that hill, their suffering is short-lived, if they suffer at all. Most of them just get waxed, you know, just like that." He snapped his fingers sharply for emphasis. "Vaporized by exploding mortars, torn in half by machine guns, blown to bits by flak in their B-17s." He blinked, then added grimly, "Or like the thousands of men I blew up in the last war—just gone." He didn't bring his eyes away from the window but let his gaze linger there, distant and unfocused, his almond-shaped brown eyes blinking slowly as he continued to speak. "But, no, this man, Lawson...he was just a kid...maybe twenty-one, twenty-two years old...a brand-new ensign..."_

_She watched him for a moment, aching to reach out to him, but not certain in that moment if he would accept her touch or reject it. Still, desperate to bring him some comfort, she knew she had to try something even as his words trailed off, and he left his sentence unfinished. "What happened to him?" she asked, though the grim gravity in his voice left little doubt as to the ensign's fate. Angel's eyes swiveled away from the rain-splattered window and towards the mantel above Brennan's fireplace. Various artifacts were displayed there: Egyptian perfume jars, a scrimshawed walrus tusk from Greenland, a curved Berber dagger from Mauretania, a copper misericord from 15th century Bretagne, and a reproduction of a panel from a Guatemalan temple depicting the Mayan king Dah 'Ag Txhaun. "Tell me..."_

_He closed his eyes, rolling his jaw to one side as he tugged at his upper lip with his teeth. "Oh, God," he sighed, covering his face with his hand. _

_For several moments, he said nothing, but then he looked up at her, his warm eyes suddenly rimmed with tears as he stared back at her, his face drawn with anguish. He knew he had to tell someone, and that the only person he could tell who would understand what he had done and the way it ate at him was her. _

_Only her. _

_But still, the ache that tugged at him from deep within his chest made him afraid, afraid that despite everything, she, too, might reject him for what he'd done. He closed his eyes, trying to silence the niggling voice of doubt. He felt the murmur in the back of his mind grow louder. He had to tell her. _

_He breathed a heavy sigh, then opened his mouth to speak. His voice was even and firm, though the words came stumbling out. "I didn't...I just couldn't think of any other way, you know...there wasn't any time..."_

_Brennan narrowed her eyes slightly as she watched the man she'd known, in one form or the other, for eighty-odd years, grasp the arms of the handmade leather chair he adored with a stiff, claw-like grip as his eyes shimmered in the dim light of her living room. "Angel," she whispered. "I want to help you, but...I can't help you if I don't know what happened. Tell me, please."_

_He swallowed and turned to level a hard stare at her. His mouth fell open slightly as he seemed to struggle to find the words, craning his head back and grunting quietly. "I made him," he said in a dark, heavy tone of voice. "I made him into...into..." _

_His voice trailed off and he turned away from her and stared out the window, squinting as he tried to make out the lake behind the heavy rain. Angel rubbed his hand back and forth over the brown leather arm of the chair, pressing his palm into the smooth, carefully-tanned and generously-conditioned hide as he remembered the first time he saw the chair, sitting in the corner of the room, years after he had commented casually to her about how much he liked a similarly-fashioned chair in Sr. Cavantes' workshop. He looked at his hand, the way his skin contrasted against the leather, and his eyes moved up his forearm, skimming over the web of veins as his mind went back to the dark engine room and how he sliced open his arm with a jagged piece of pipe. _

_Shrugging, he tried to push away the image in his mind as he swallowed the hard lump in his throat and sighed. "I made him into...into one of, well you know. I made him...like me. I damned him, as I myself am damned. I did this to him. Forty-five years I've lived with a soul, a conscience, and I've never―never, not once―made anyone. But he was just laying there, on the floor of the engine room, and there...I tried to think, as quick as I could, of any other way to get that sub running again, but...I just couldn't, Bren. I couldn't fix that sub. Hell, I can barely fix the plumbing under my own kitchen sink when the line gets clogged up, never mind the battery- and diesel-powered propulsion system of a German submarine." He paused and blinked as he realized he'd probably violated a half-dozen laws with his slip. "None of the others on that ship had the...you know, the engineering background or mechanical aptitude to..."_

"_Angel," she said in a low, firm voice. "You did what you had to..."_

_It was almost as if he hadn't heard a single word she'd said as he continued. "I just couldn't, in the five or ten seconds I had before he totally bled out there on the engine room floor, figure out another way. So..." He brought his hand up and covered his eyes, rubbing the moisture from them with the heel of his hand. "So, I did it. He would've died on that floor and been a hero. Killed in action. He'd get a Purple Heart. It'd have been an honorable death...one to be proud of. But...but now, I took that from him...stole it, really, his hero's death. Because now he's definitely no hero. He's...dark, hungry, and...he'll see no death but those he causes himself. And never his own."_

"_Angel," she whispered, walking over to him and placing her hand on his shoulder, this time not resisting the urge to touch him. "Angel, please―"_

"_No," he said, wresting his shoulder from her grasp, unable to imagine why she'd want to touch him after what he'd just told her. The thought of what he'd done made his own skin crawl, and he was certain that it had to do the same to her. "No, Bren. Don't you understand?" he asked with an anguished cry. "He's doomed forever, until somebody stakes him or cuts off his head or shoves him into the sunlight to put him out of his misery. What I did was way, way worse than killing him. I took his death away from him."_

"_Angel, please, you can't do this to yourself," she pleaded with him as she took several steps back. "Please?"_

"_You don't understand," he croaked. "I can still taste him, Bren," he said, his mouth hanging open as he averted his eyes from hers. "That sweet, tingly metallic taste that only human blood really has. It's unique, you know. There's only one thing that tastes like that and...for decades I'd gotten used to not tasting it. Then, when I had to..." Angel sighed. "I bit him, and I felt his blood flow onto my tongue, and that way it feels when it hits your taste buds, first with a vague tingle and then a sweetness, then a lingering tartness that kind of varies a little from person to person." Angel glanced down at his lap and scraped his thumbnail over a worn, thinning spot on the thigh of his jeans. He gave a faint shrug, then continued explaining, "Men are tarter than women. The young ones are less sharp, more smooth-tasting than older ones. He was a young man, in the prime of his life, and I could taste it in my mouth when I drank him dry. I could taste all of it, everything he might have been able to be in his life, but won't be able to be because it was all over for him. He'll forever be a young man who never lived his life, even though he gets spend the rest of eternity living. I could taste it, Bren, every fucking bit of it, with every drop of him I drank. And I fucking drained him dry."_

"_Angel, don't do this," she pleaded, coming towards him again. _

_She watched him fuss with his jeans, his hand quivering as he jerked his leg up and down in an agitated motion. For a moment, he stilled his shaking leg as he heard her approach, but he refused to raise his gaze to meet hers. She knew he was sinking into one of his dark moods, but as she moved towards him, she sensed that this was the darkest, bleakest of his brooding moods that she'd ever seen. She knew she had to do something and do something quickly to keep him from spiraling out of control and into a place where she could never reach him. Unwilling to accept such a possibility, again, she reached out to touch his arm._

"_No, Bren!" he shouted, pushing her away from him, holding his hand up in front of his face as if in so doing he could shield his hideous visage from her gaze, silently begging her to look away and let him be. "Can't you see?" he rasped. "I can't get it outta my head. I can't get the smell of him out of my nose. It's been a month now, but I can still smell him, you know, the way they always smell after they've been sucked dry. I'd almost gotten that smell outta my head, but..." He shook his head numbly and clenched his fist. "I can still feel how it felt when I cut my own wrist and had him suck my blood..."_

"_Don't do this, Angel..." she said again, moving even closer towards him so that almost no space separated them as she reached out to him. "Enough," she said firmly._

"_No," he said shaking his head. "It'll never be enough. Don't you get it? I'm a monster. I've been lying to myself for twenty years, Bren." His lips curled back in repugnance as he spoke, and still he refused to look her in the eye. "Ever since...since that night, with you." His mouth hung open as he remembered that night, just a room away, when everything changed for him—for them. For a moment, no words came, and he just sat there, open-mouthed, staring into his lap. "You know, ever since then, I've thought, maybe, just maybe, that I thought I could be different. But I was wrong. I tasted him...and now I want more, Bren. I want more, and God help me, I don't think I can stop until I am what I really am."_

_A flash of anger colored her eyes. "What's with you?" she snapped, realizing that if she wasn't responding to her attempts to comfort him perhaps he'd respond to how she baited him since in all the time she'd known him that was one thing he could never resist. "Why does everything always have to be so melodramatic with you, Angel? You're a vampire. Vampires drink blood. Of course, you've been fighting your nature by not feeding on humans, and for the first time in a long time, you slipped. Hell, you didn't even really slip. It wasn't like you fell off the wagon because you had a sudden lapse in self-control. You did what you had to do."_

"_Don't," he warned her, his voice rough and low as he spoke with a shake of his head and finally lifted his eyes to meet hers. "Don't make excuses for me, Bren."_

"_I'm not," she told him, her voice hardening again as she stared at him. "I'm simply saying that you are what you are_—"

"_A monster!" he snapped, interrupting her._

_At his exclamation, Brennan stopped and leveled her gaze at him, her tone changing as she realized that softly-spoken, soothing words of comfort would not help him. He had to accept what he had happened, and what he had done, and she just wasn't quite certain how to get him to do so except by confronting him with t__he truth of what had happened, what he'd done, in as plain a set of terms as she could muster. "A part of you is," she calmly nodded at him. "Yes."_

_He stared in wide-eyed disbelief at her simple and matter-of-fact agreement with a statement that he'd expected her steadfastly to contradict. "You think I'm a monster?" he asked, a touch of the incredulity he felt creeping into his voice when he spoke. While he recognized that she knew better than anyone the darkness that lived inside of him, and the thin, brittle wall that held that darkness back, it took him by surprise that she would call out so plainly what he spent so many years seeking to forget._

"_I think...that there's a demon inside of you, and that shapes the darkness that you hold at bay with your soul, Angel," Brennan told him. "We all have darkness in us. The reasons, whatfores, and whys...those vary from person to person. But, the darkness? It's still there...it's still there, and it never ever goes away. You have your darkness...and I have mine. But, still we fight the battle we have to fight, because the alternative is to just stop, to quit. And, you and I...we made that agreement twenty years ago. We made that agreement not to stop. Not to quit. Not to give up. To keep fighting. You and I. Both of us. Remember?"_

_He was quiet for a minute and then jerked his head in agreement. He looked away from her. "I know what you're saying," he said, his voice gravelly. "But...it's more than that, Bren. I can still smell it, I can still taste it. And it makes me want it. I want to so damn badly."_

_She considered his statement and then took a tentative step towards him. "Fine. You still want it. That's okay, Angel_—"

"_No, it's not!" he roared, stomping his foot on the floor and pounding his fist on the arm of the chair. "It's not okay," he said, pushing himself up from the chair. "I can't keep the memory of Lawson's blood in my mind and hope to keep things straight, to be able to do what I need to do. I'm not that strong, Bren. I'm just not."_

_Hesitantly, she reached out and finally touched her hand to his arm. "Angel_—" _she said quietly._

"_Don't," he whispered, weakly trying to pull away from her. "Please, just...don't Bren. I-I..."_

"_Let me help you," she said quietly, her low voice trying to tempt him, to lure him away from focusing on his pain and onto something else. For a moment, she fell silent, unsure of what to do. Then, a distant memory rang out in the back of her mind as she remembered a night, twenty years earlier, when he'd pressed firm, wet kisses along her collarbone, sucking at her sweat-damp skin as he murmured how she was the best, sweetest thing he'd ever tasted. Blinking away the memory, she knew what she had to do. _

"_Angel," she said. "Let me help you, please." His cheek twitched as he looked back at her, his hands shaking as he stood there. "I know how. You just have to let me help you, let me wash it all away," she said vaguely. "The way he tasted."_

_His head snapped around, and he leveled his intense brown eyes at her. "What_—_I don't...what do you mean?"_

"_You say you can't get the memory of Lawson's blood out of your mind?" she asked, her eyes darkening a shade as she licked her lips and studied him intently while she waited for a response. When none was forthcoming, she prompted him again. "Is that it?"_

_He stared at her for a minute, and then slowly nodded. "God help me, yes," he confessed, his voice low and breathy. "Yes."_

_Brennan held his gaze for another minute and then slowly nodded her head. "Okay, then, you need to replace it with the memory of something stronger...something better," she said tentatively. Coming up to him, she pressed her body up against his and twisted her head so that her long auburn hair fell away from the side of her neck that had never been marred by Darla's fangs. Exposing the smooth, creamy curve of her neck to him, she said, "I can give that to you, Angel."_

_He shook his head firmly, again and again as he waved his hands crosswise in the air. "No," he grunted. "Just...Bren, no...I won't do it. I can't_—" _His words said 'no', but he felt a prickling energy tingling through his limbs at the thought of taking her the way a part of him_—_a part of him he'd long held at bay, suppressed and buried deep inside_—_had always yearned for. After eighty-three years of hunger, he felt his self-control slipping with each passing second even as she continued to press him mercilessly._

"_You know I can," she insisted as she looked into his tortured gaze. "You know it, Angel."_

"_Bren_—"

"_Angel," she tried again. "Let me."_

"_No," he told her, squeezing his eyes shut as he tried to ignore the tingling he felt in his mouth and throat and the twittering in his belly at the thought of feeding on her. Though he'd tried to ignore it**, **the thought had flashed through his mind over the years, in fleeting moments as he worshipped her body with his mouth and could feel her pulse against his lips. It was something he'd wanted, wanted desperately, to taste her in every way possible. But she'd never offered, and so he'd never asked. Instead, each time, he'd driven the thought, and the temptation, from his mind until this very moment that she'd dangerously brought it back into his mind when he knew his resolve was even weaker than usual. "I can't," he said**, **his mouth watering as the sound of her beating heart warbled in his ears and he found his gaze drawn to the minute way her pulse throbbed beneath the silky, translucent skin of her neck. He winced as a sharp tugging low in his gut mocked him for denying with words what his body wanted so badly. A frisson of excitement buzzed through his limbs as he felt his resolve crumbling and hated himself for it all at the same time. "You know I shouldn't," he managed to finally tell her._

"_Why not?" she asked in clear surprise. "It's not as if you can turn me, Angel," she reminded him. "You know that others have tried before and because of certain...arrangements I've made, that can never happen. Don't tell me you've forgotten already? That first night, I know you remember I told you that. You can't turn me."_

_He thought back to the first night he'd known her, and how he had hung from her rafters, his mouth tingling with want as he imagined what she'd taste like, and the sassy way she'd told him that Darla had bitten her in a futile attempt to make her. He remembered how her stubborn resistance to being turned by the woman who'd turned him made his balls tighten even in that moment at the thought that such a woman had wanted him. _

"_I can still drain you dry," he muttered. "I could kill you, Bren."_

_She laughed her infuriatingly lyrical laugh as she lifted her eyes to his. They already crackled with the faint but rapidly growing stronger blue static charge that he'd come to know so well in the years they'd been sleeping together. "Angel," she said. "Do I really need to remind you that I can stop you whenever I want to? And, quite easily, I might add?" He was silent, and she took that silence as a sign that he was considering her offer. "In the eighty-three years we've known one another, you've tasted me in just about every way possible," she said, tilting her head to the side and raising her chin, once more exposing her neck to him. Her lips parted and she clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth as she leaned in close enough that he felt her breath on his skin. "Don't you think it's time to remove the remaining quantifiers on that statement? You can taste me...and then, I promise you, Angel...you know that what you'll get from me will make Lawson's blood seem like a distant, vague if unpleasant memory. It will. You know it will."_

"_It's not right," he muttered, his nostrils flaring instinctively at seeing her long, slender neck bared this way, her life-force laid out before him as he watched her carotid pulse throb beneath the porcelain skin on the side of her neck, and it made him hate himself even more because of how much he wanted her—to taste her in his mouth and to be inside of her, to feel her inside of him and swallow him up as he swallowed her—and he wanted it, all of it, so badly in that moment. He closed his eyes and shook his head, trying to ignore the rising tide of want that welled up inside of him as he let the familiar scent of her tickle his nostrils. "No, Bren," he insisted with a shake of his head. "I-I...I won't...I can't do it. I just can't."_

_Undaunted, she narrowed her eyes as she said, "You're going to make me fight dirty, aren't you?"_

_Angel's eyes narrowed. "Please," he said. "Don't. Don't do this. It's not right, Bren. Please." He swallowed hard and then asked her as she continued to stare at him with her temptress's gaze, "Why are you doing this?" He turned away, not looking for an answer to the question but in asking, pleading with her to stop pushing him, fearful that if pushed any farther, he wouldn't be able to stop himself. "Why are you making me do this?"_

_A part of her hated that she had to entice him in such a way, but she knew she'd long ago passed the point of no return and that they both needed for her to ensure they saw this thing between them through to its natural conclusion. Tilting her head, Brennan licked her lips as her pink tongue darted out of the corner of her mouth before she answered his question. "I'm not making you do anything you don't want to do, that I don't want you to do, that we both don't want you to do," she told him in a sultry and alluring voice. "Free will, free choice, Angel, remember? But, we both know you came here because you needed me. You came here because you needed something from me. Something that only I can give you_—" _She paused as she reached between them, quickly unbuttoning his jeans and letting her fingers sneak inside his pants. She dipped her slender fingers into his boxers as she sought out his half-hard dick and closed her fist around it. "Something that isn't just about sex, either," she breathed._

_Angel leaned his head back and hissed at the contact. "Bren," he sighed, squeezing his eyes shut as if by closing his eyes to the sight of her bare neck and flickering eyes he could cut off the hunger inside of him that made his nose tingle and his mouth water. "Please..." He felt his cheeks twitch and familiar, if dreaded, itching sensation in his gums, and he knew that only a rapidly fraying thread of willpower kept the demon inside of him from tearing away its mask and revealing its face as his own._

"_You've always held back," she murmured, enjoying the feel of him, firm and smooth, in her hand. "And, I've always been content to let you hold back...until now." _

"_You don't know what you're asking for," he said to her, his voice having dropped a half-octave and suddenly taking on a peculiar metallic edge to it. "Please, Bren."_

_She tilted her head so that he could feel her warm breath on his cheek. "You may have a demon inside you, Angel, but we both know there's more than just a taint of demon in me that goes beyond what you and I've shared over the years. You know it. I know you do. Remember? You said it. That very first night. You didn't know what I was, what I could do. Remember?"_

"_No," he rasped, his groin tightening as he remembered one of the very first glimpses he'd had of her, wiping the co-mingled blood of two slain men off the blade of her silver dagger. "You're right. I didn't know what you were then," he admitted, hissing at the arousing feel of her touch combined with the memory of how her dangerousness and rebellious arrogance had enthralled him that first night. "I didn't...but I knew what you were capable of once I saw what you did_—_" His voice trailed off for a beat before he hastily amended, "Or what was left after you'd done it."_

"_I've kept that darkness at bay for a long, long time," she told him, her voice soft as she spoke of something she rarely discussed with anyone, not even him. "I like to think I'm not the same woman I was back then, for better or worse. But, it's still there, Angel. It's still inside me. It never goes away. Usually, I just ignore it these days even if I never forget it's there." She paused for a beat and then asked, "But you know what?"_

"_What?" he barely breathed._

"_Tonight, Angel? Tonight, I know you can feel it," she told him. "I know you can...can't you?"_

"_Yes," he growled back. "I feel it. I can sense it. I can smell it." He'd always been able to smell it, the darkness—a smoky, spicy scent, like fire-roasted chile peppers, that clung to the sweetness of her sweat—in a way that was uniquely her, swirled as it was with the smell of her lust and her laughter, lacking the one thing that filled his nostrils every time he smelled a human: the tangy, citrusy smell of human fear. His nostrils flared as he inhaled deeply and smelled the darkness in her, filling his sinuses and warming the back of his throat in a way that made him want her even more in that moment than he'd ever thought possible. "I can smell it," he said again. _

"_That darkness, Angel?" she told him. "It's more than capable of handling you...all of you." She paused and then whispered, "Trust me."_

"_Bren," he said, his voice low and broad. "How do you know that what you're asking for isn't going to unleash the darkness in you, or in me?"_

"_It might," she said. "It very well might. But, it's a part of who we are, Angel. And, if that does happen, then we'll cope. We'll deal with it. I'll find a way to deal with it. Because, I know what I am and that's how I cope with that knowledge. It's been that way for a long time now. I made...I made peace with it a long time ago. Sometimes, it's true, I forget that I've made my peace with it...that I forgave myself for what happened because of me...because of how I came into this world. And, what I've done since. But, it is as it is. I know what I am. I know who I am. And, I know that in my duality, there is always balance that must be sought. It's that balance, Angel, that let's me know that whatever happens, I'll be able to handle things."_

_Angel shook his head and ran his hand through his hair with a groan of frustration. "I thought I had," he said. "I thought I'd found my way to the other side of all of it, that I'd...that I found a way I could sleep each day knowing what I'd done. The scope of everything I've done. It's worse than anything you ever did, Bren. You know it. But, Lawson...what I did to him, and what I had to do to him, it's all..." He swallowed hard and looked away, averting his gaze from hers. "The darkness, I can feel it bubbling up again inside of me, as if it's right there, under the surface, burning under my skin. I can feel it, Bren. I'm afraid—I'm afraid that I can't keep it in any longer, and that it...that I'm not strong enough to hold it off anymore."_

_She reached up with her free hand and cupped his jaw while she dragged her fisted hand over his flesh as much as she was able to given the confines of his boxers and jeans. "Trust me," she said. "Trust me. Trust us."_

"_Nnnnnngth," he murmured as he felt her fingers close even more tightly around him. "You...I trust you...but...I don't trust myself...and so I don't...I want to trust us...but—" _

"_No buts," she demanded. "Either you trust me...you trust us...or you don't. But, I know you already do, Angel." She paused and then sighed, "Think...have I ever made this offer before? To you...either in our time together as Angelus or since you were ensouled?"_

"_No," he groaned after a few seconds of silence**, **the sudden wave of want that surged inside of him temporarily distracting him from the fact that she was making an unprecedented offer. The haze cleared somewhat as he looked deep into her bright blue eyes and he nodded. "You haven't."_

_She looked at him for a moment and then slowly nodded. "So," she said, her voice still low. "What does that tell you?"_

"_That tells me..." he grunted. "That I need to trust you like you trust me. I-I...I need to I trust you...us," he said, a low growl sounding in his throat. His decision made, he then nodded, "Fuck, yes. Please. I-I want...please, Bren. I need it. I...need...you. Please."_

_Her answer came not in words, but in actions._

_She dropped her hands away from him before she brought them up again and wrapped her arms around his chest. She nodded as he grunted at her, lifting her up as she folded her legs around his waist. They stumbled back as far as they could until they hit an exposed brick wall on the far side of her living room. After a couple of seconds, he separated them enough to shove his boxers and jeans down around his knees, while she tugged up her skirt. Their faces crashed into one another as their lips met in a desperate kiss._

_Angel felt a surge of desire pulse into his limbs from the base of his spine, sending a wave of warmth spreading through his chest. His cheeks twitched again and his nostrils flared as his nose filled with the sweet smell of her sweat and her growing desire. He met her kiss with his own, quickly covering her mouth with his own as he hungrily grasped at her lips, his tongue invading her mouth as a deep, aggressive growl rumbled from his chest. He felt a raw, insistent tugging behind his navel, and he felt himself growing more and more aroused with each sweep of his tongue inside her mouth. He began to struggle, his attention divided between kissing her and trying to line himself up at the entrance to her warm, wet folds that already dripped for him, soaking her panties. He pushed her panties to the side even as he hesitated from sliding into her._

"_Trust me," she murmured against his cheek. "Ooohhhh...I want you." Already a crackle of tell-tale blue energy was encasing the pair, like a cocoon. "I know you...I know what you are, and I still...I want you. I...want...you. You won't...hurt me. You...can't." She twisted her head away from his greedy mouth, and once again exposed her neck to him. "Do it, Angel. Trust. Do it." _

_Angel's eyes opened wide as he felt a flutter in his belly at the sight of her neck, exposed to him. "Bren," he whispered as he felt the static energy pricking at the skin on his arms and on the skin of his chest. He took one last look at her long, unblemished neck and closed his eyes before he grunted and felt the muscles of his face suddenly tighten, his cheeks drawing tight and his lips curling back, exposing jagged rows of teeth and sharp fangs. His field of vision narrowed as his brow thickened, and all he could see through the haze of his blood lust was the long plane of Brennan's neck, arched and ready for him. Distracted as he was, he didn't hear her mumbling a string of strange, almost incoherent words as she chanted at him. He opened his mouth with a snarl and, hesitating only slightly, leaned in, sinking his teeth into the silky skin of her neck at the same time he thrust up inside her. _

_His fangs pierced her delicate skin in an instant, and after a moment, the blood began to flow into his mouth, covering his tongue and pooling in the space between his teeth and his lips. His nose filled with the coppery scent of her blood as his tongue savored the taste of her before he began to brutally move in and out of her. Though most of his mind's focus was on the taking of her blood and the taking of her body, a tiny sliver of his consciousness registered the observation that her blood was, without a doubt, the sweetest and smoothest he'd ever tasted, like nectar. As he jerked up and into her, filling her tight warmth with his rigid flesh again and again, his mind began to swim in the all-encompassing pleasure of knowing her so deeply and completely, as her blood filled his mouth, her scent filled his nose and his cock filled her up. _

"_Ooooh," she moaned as she struggled to match him, losing the ability to say anything coherent beyond his name and the random word of approval. "Ahhh...good...so...good. Ohhhhhh."_

_With each stroke, the sensation of being surrounded by her tight, wet warmth soon eclipsed the taste of her, and each time he rolled his hips back and entered her again, he loosened ever so slightly his jaws' grip on her neck. Again and again he pounded into her, and after a few dozen strokes, his teeth no longer held her flesh between them. He released her, taking one last suck with his lips on the twin wounds that pulsed faintly with each beat of her heart before he let go entirely, licking the last few drops of her blood from his lips at the same time he pushed into her one last time and felt himself start to fall apart._

_He threw his head back and cried out, his twisted grimace making his utterance completely incomprehensible except for the long, choked groan that signaled his shattering release._

"_Angel," Brennan groaned as she felt him spend inside her before she too cracked. "Ohhhh."_

"_Guhhh," he grunted as he jerked into her one last time, holding himself as deep inside of her as he could as his release pulsed into her, filling her with his hot fluid, coating her with his essence just as her blood had warmed the inside of his mouth just moments earlier._

_After it was done, his knees wobbled briefly then gave out as they slid down the wall until the floor came up and cradled them. Brennan opened her eyes and watched as the twisted, tense features of his face relaxed, his lips no longer curling back and his mouth slowly closing over his rounded, white teeth, his brow smoothing into a shape that revealed his warm, almond-shaped brown eyes again. He closed his eyes and sighed, but said nothing. She struggled for breath before she let her mouth curve into a breathless smile. She blinked at him several times, while no words were exchanged between them._

_Eventually, when he opened his eyes, her smile grew as she murmured, "See?"_

_"Yes," he whispered._

_"I...told...you," she panted._

"_You..." Angel shook his head slightly as he blinked a couple of times. "You did."_

"_I...was...right," she added playfully. "Tell me."_

_His mouth fell open as he reached his hand up to draw his fingertips over the red, bruised marks he'd left on her neck. "You were right," he whispered. "But, Bren, I've_—_"_

"_You didn't hurt me," she reassured him, her voice calm. "You didn't. I swear."_

_"But_—_" he said with a nod at her neck._

_"They'll heal," she cut him off. "And more quickly than you'd think. The, ummm, the charm—it should...I think...I'll be fine."_

_Angel smiled faintly. "I don't understand your magicks," he said. "I never have." He paused for a beat and then asked, "I can't deny I'm curious, though. What was it?"_

_Brennan arched an eyebrow at him asking for clarification. _

"_The charm?" he asked her. "What was it?" His eyebrows were knit in confusion as his hazy mind tried to work out the problem on its own. Blinking a couple of times as he realized she was staring at him with a knowing grin, he said, "Or is this one of those times I'm better off not knowing?"_

_She gulped down another mouthful of air and said, "Protective...you didn't get as deep as you might've...at least, not with your teeth." She gave him a saucy look as she winked at him._

_He blinked a couple of times as he considered her words, then laughed. "You saucy baggage," he snickered. He smiled and looked at her, sobering for a minute before he said, "You'd better not use such a charm so as to keep me from other...well...ways of penetrating you." He grinned and added, "Surely you know that's not necessary, lass. We know each other too well for that, don't we?"_

"_Pretty well," she agreed, her breaths still labored in the wake of it all. "But...in all the times we've fucked...none was...like this." She paused and reached over to brush her lips against his before she pulled away and smiled. "It was so good, Angel. So very good."_

"_Was it really?" he asked, his eyebrows flying up in surprise. "I mean, for you? For me, it was...well...it would be difficult to explain, but...really? It was good?"_

"_Yes," she said as she gave him another kiss. "Now, tell me...tell me that you've any memory but me in your mind."_

_Angel leaned in and kissed her back, holding her bottom lip between his for a moment before releasing it. "No," he said. "Right now, you're the only thing I can think of. After that, I'm not even sure I know my own name."_

"_Excellent," she laughed merrily at him. "That's excellent."_

Booth swallowed hard as he walked himself around in a circle, blinking erratically as he saw the lab scenery around him—the stainless steel pillars, railings, floors and beams, and all the open, glass-walled offices, all of it brightly illuminated by halogen lights that sparkled in his hazy, tear-rimmed gaze—but he found himself unable to even see straight, his mind was so flooded with images and sounds that, even with his eyes wide open, the visions before him flickered in and out as his thoughts were tossed about like a rudderless craft on the rough, wind-scoured seas of his chaotic mind, listing and taking on water as each memory knocked him sideways like a rogue wave.

Brennan watched him in horror as she saw him stumble around the lab in aimless circles, his arms raised as he pawed uselessly at the air. His normally olive-skinned face had waxed pale, almost ashen, and the confident laughter in his warm brown eyes was nowhere to be found as he stared, wide-eyed in panic. For a moment, their eyes met and locked, and as she held his gaze, she couldn't help but feel that his eyes stared back at her as if she were a stranger.

_My God, _she thought, _what have I done? _She felt her stomach clench and twist as her mouth opened and she called his name.

"_Booth_..."

* * *

**-tbc-**

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**A/N2: **So, there we have it. How was that for a zany trip down the rabbit hole into Wonderland? Does everyone feel as tripped out as poor Booth does? If so, then good. That's _exactly_ how you're supposed to feel. But, for better or for worse, we're not done with poor Booth's deluge of memories. There's more to come. Still with us? Then, we'd love it if you could let us know what you think so far. Coming up next: more memories and finally Booth _and _Brennan recovering enough to do something about everything that's just happened. Stay tuned and thanks for reading!


	3. Part IIIA: Echoes of the Past, Part 1

**Echoes True and False**

**By:** Lesera128 & dharmamonkey

**Rated: **M

**Disclaimer: **Here we posit our normal rigmarole. No, we don't own anything from _Bones _or _Angel... _or anything else. Yes, we're wreaking what havoc we can with these characters that we don't own to create an awesome story. But, since it's only for the purposes of creative enjoyment and amusing distraction, we think we're okay. Are there any other questions? No? ::blinks:: Good. Then moving on―

**Logistical Notes: **For those who are curious, the infamous character of Helen (or at least the template for her) was borrowed from the non-canon _Buffy the Vampire Slayer _novel by Nancy Holder called _The Evil that Men Do. _Just an FYI**.**

**Author's Note: **This chapter is long overdue. However, in our defense, at approximately 25,000 words (which is half what the length of the original chapter was since we cut it in half) it's not like it wasn't without good cause. That said, we hope the chapter lives up to expectations and that you enjoy. So, without (much) further adieu, one more minor note and then onto the good stuff.

**UNF Alert: **This part of the story contains a scene with Angelus. In case you've forgotten, since it's been awhile since Angelus has been around for any substantial period of time in recent chapters, Angelus can be quite lewd and inappropriate, and such inappropriately lewd talk frequently degrades into extremely lewd conduct. Where Angelus goes, UNF usually follows. It's his nature. If you don't care to read about that, or shouldn't be, save yourself. For the rest of you, you've waited long enough. Read on.

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**Part IIIA: Echoes of the Past, Part 1**

* * *

The memories assaulted him, pummeling him like the incessant fall of a hard, cold rain, soaking him to the core until all Booth could do was just try to endure it. He stumbled a bit, struggling to see clearly as his mind was flooded with visions of other times and places he'd never seen or heard or thought of before. As each memory faded and a new one appeared to swallow him up, he felt his heart pounding in his chest, and his breaths came in desperate pants as he swore he was being choked and devoured by the kudzu that was rapidly blanketing his mind with its dense, invasive tendrils.

Booth felt something howl deep inside of his chest, a flash of feral enthusiasm that rippled through his limbs and made his shoulders twitch. It was the same tightly-wound aggression that he'd felt a thousand times while crouched at the faceoff circle, hunched over his skates with his stick held firmly in his hands as his eyes watched the ice below for the moment the hard black puck would come into his field of vision and he'd explode in a blur of movement and speed. He felt a rush, the same soaring wildness that sent his simmering blood to the verge of boiling in the fraction of a second between when he reared his arm back and his his fist landed hard against another man's jaw. But the rush left him breathless in its wake, as something deep within recoiled a little at the darkness inside of him and how delicate the fetters were that seemed to hold it at bay.

Brennan felt dizzy just watching him as all the color drained from her face at the realization of what she'd done, especially what she'd done to him. She could see his skin glistening with a fine sheen of perspiration that reflected under the halogen track lighting that illuminated the lab's main atrium. Even from a distance, she could see his pupils had dilated significantly, and the muscles of his jaw and hands had tensed greatly, and the normally warm tone of his olive skin had blanched to a pallor that made Brennan's heart race with concern.

_Ohh, Booth, _she thought as she began to walk towards him slowly, careful not to send him into a deeper spiral of panic than already seemed to be swallowing him up with each passing second. _God, what have I done?_

His mouth opened and closed, his jaw shifting from side-to-side and back and forth as small murmurs, whimpers and growls sounded from the back of his throat, and his eyebrows knit in a troubled way, low over his deep-set brown eyes, wavering every few seconds as his eyes blinked, narrowed, widened and blinked again as he struggled with the images that flooded through his mind and blinded his sight with visions of a past he never knew he had.

_Brennan glanced at the clock with a roll of her eyes as she opened the door to her terraced house and beheld the source of the pounding that had drawn her from the depths of her bedroom. As she took in the sight before her, she watched with no unexpected amusement as she saw the bloodied, battered figure that stood impatiently, hunched over with his hands on his hips, on her doorstep. _

_Angelus raised his head and looked at her, an inch-long gash bisecting his left eyebrow, another laceration on the right side of his forehead, near his hairline, and a couple of small cuts on the edge of his slightly-swollen lips. A trail of dried blood ran from his nostrils down to his upper lip. His face was covered with two days' worth of stubble and his hands were darkened with dirt._

"_Well, I would say something trite like 'look what the vampire cat dragged in,' but seeing as how it's four o'clock in the morning, Angelus," she said to him with a pointedly arched brow. "I hope you'll forgive me for skipping the pleasantries and I'll simply ask you...why are you here?" _

_Angelus straightened his back with a grunt and stumbled through her doorway into her apartment. "You know," he huffed in mild annoyance at her, "a normal person would have said, 'Oh my, Angelus, what's wrong? What happened to you, sweetness? How can I help? Tell me what to do.'"_

_Laughing cynically at him, Brennan shook her head as she said, "Ha. As if I'd ever let you tell me what to do."_

_Angelus rolled his eyes at her before he said,** "**Aye, and like I'm daft enough to think you'd listen if I did." He snorted dismissively and shook his head. "I mean, for fuck's sake. I suppose you expect me to be grateful for your dispensin' with the formalities, then, aye?"_

_Staring at him with a beady glance, she asked, "I suppose you want to come in then?"_

_"No," he said. "I was just thinkin' I'd stand here on your wee doorstep for the next fortnight or two, baying like an ol' tomcat." Angelus stared at her blankly for a moment as he saw her open her mouth as she appeared to be about to say something, thought better of it when he shot her a look of annoyance, and then was pleased when her mouth snapped shut. When another few seconds passed, and still an awkward silence hung between them, nodding at her with a bit of impatience, Angelus grunted, "Come on, Brennan. You know I wanna come in. For fuck's sake, lass, are you really gonna make me ask?"_

_Opening her front door wide, she gave an exasperated gesture as she said, "Fine." Shaking her head, she added, "If you've come all this way, you might as well come in and tell me what you want."_

_"You know, you're a fine fuckin' piece o' work, lass," he grumbled as he walked in. "Since when did you ever do me any favors, huh? An' I donna mean the kind that involve me bangin' me hard cock in your hot snatch, by the by."_

_He turned around as he watched her close her front door with a loud _thunk _and looked her up and down. Her cheeks had a rosy glow to them, and even if he hadn't noticed the way the light of the room caught the light sheen of perspiration along her collarbone, he could smell the sweet scent of her sweat. Her normally pale blue eyes flashed bright in a way that he recognized as one that usually he saw in her eyes only when he was about to fuck her, and with the way her pupils were dilated, she had a predatory look about her that made his balls tighten in his trousers. _

_The wild, dark look that glittered in her eyes reminded him of the look she flashed him when he'd roused from his unconsciousness the first night they came together, as he opened his eyes and saw her wiping the blood of two slain men off her mother's dagger. That look made him think of the way she'd brutally demanded that he take her that night after ordering him to cut her out of her dress and corset so that he could fuck her in nothing but the pair of black Spanish leather heeled boots she'd worn, right there on the Azerbaijani carpet in front of her fireplace, just a few feet away from where he now stood. Since that night, he'd hungered for her, and while he'd wandered his way into other women's beds, he'd never lost that feeling that no other woman would satisfy him that way she did. _

_Angelus smirked, noting how she seemed to have thrown on her robe quickly and knotted it loosely, and his glance fell to her hands as he wondered what she'd been doing just moments earlier when he'd banged at her door given all the evidence combined. Brennan's eyes quickly met his when she realized where he was looking, and she quickly reknotted the robe's belt more tightly around her frame._

"_Why bother?" Angelus snickered. "It's not like I haven't seen it all before, lass...many, many times, mmm." He licked his lips at the statement, then tilted his head as he added, "And will again soon, I think, hmmm?"_

_Rolling her eyes at him, Brennan said, "You'd think after all these years I'd be used to that presumptuous ego, hmmm, Angelus?"_

_Shaking his head, Angelus said, "You've always been too stubborn, lass. Twice as stubborn as a two-headed mule, ya are. When you get that wicked mind o' yours set on somethin', there's no force in this world or any other that can keep you away from it." He hesitated for a moment, then said, "I like it best when that mind o' yours is thinkin' about me, 'cause that means there's no resistin' your willful, wicked seductions, aye? But if that's the price I have to pay for your wicked fuckin', well, alas, I suppose I'll just have to grin and bear it while I suffer your stubbornness."_

_Pursing her pink lips, Brennan retorted, "You know, not everyone thinks that about me, Angelus. As a matter of fact, I think you're the only one who's ever said that about me."_

"_Oh?" he asked her. "So you've been takin' up with blitherin' idiots again while I been gone, hmmm? Is that what you're tryin' to tell me, lass?" He stared at her for a moment, almost as if he was sizing her up, and then continued, "I mean, a man's gotta be dumb, deaf, blind or all three not to see what a wonderfully fuckin' wicked, willful woman you are. And if he wasn't, and hung around you for more than a moment, he'd have to be a fuckin' mental defective or daft as all hell not to wanna do whatever he could to get between those lovely legs o' yours as quick as he could and do whatever he could to stay there as long as fuckin' possible. So, if that's the type of men you've been keepin' company with, then you've been hangin' out with the wrong kind o' men entirely all over again."_

_Narrowing her eyes, Brennan said, "What's it matter to you who I've been doing what and with whom, Angelus?"_

_Something in her tone caused him to frown, as he looked from her slightly disheveled appearance, to the direction of her bedroom, and back to Brennan again. "Seein' as how I'm all about the niceties, lass, I'm just sayin' I hope I didn't interrupt anythin' comin' at this late hour," he said with a smirk. **"**What's wrong, lass?" he chuckled. He then tilted his head as he said, "If I didn't know any better, I'd say itlooks like maybe I called ya away from some important business. Maybe you were back in that lovely bed o' yours, takin' the wee edge off?" Angelus gave her a crooked, lascivious grin. "An' if so, then it's a damn good thing I showed up when I did—aye, with my impeccable sense o' timin' and all—an' it'd be the only decent thing t'do for me to lend ya a hand finishin' ya off, mmm?" _

"_I'm not sure what you mean, Angelus," she said with an arched eyebrow. Brennan let her eyes skim Angelus' rather ragged form, admiring the way his sweat-soaked shirt clung to his muscular chest and shoulders. After a moment of silence, she shrugged and said with a faint smile, "Though I suppose you'll be pleased to know that there aren't any men waiting for me in my bed at the present time." _

"_Aye," he said. "O' course, 'cause I haven't made my way back there yet. All in due time, though, lass. But never fear, 'cause we both know I won't leave ya waitin' too long in that respect..." _

_Brennan shot him an irritated look before she sighed, "Enough."_

"_What?" he asked with a jerk of his chin._

_Shaking her head, Brennan replied, "After twenty years, Angelus—almost to the day, actually—I would've thought we were far past all of that tripe. So spare me the cocky Irish bullshit and just tell me what you want."She paused for a moment and the corners of her mouth curved up ever so slightly as she studied him that quickly disappeared. "What are doing you here?" she asked him with her face once more so devoid of emotion that Angelus would've sworn he'd imagined her showing anything but serious annoyance on her lovely face._

_Angelus scowled. "Come on, lass," he said with a petulant knitting of his eyebrows. "I've had me a shite day—aye, or two or three, ya know—and I was jus' hopin' ya'd be willin' to give me a wee hand and...maybe fix me up a bit, ya know." He pursed his lips and, after a moment could no longer suppress his lusty snicker. "I've always been able to count on ya to fix me up the way only you can, lass." He nodded at her in a complementary way before he smiled again and prodded her when she remained silent, "Ya know what I mean there, aye?" _

_She looked him up and down again, noting how soiled his light gray wool trousers and white shirt were, and how the pressed wings of his shirt collar had long since flattened out and pulled away from the body of the collar. His shirt cuffs hung open, having presumably lost his cuff links along the way; his braces hung limply from his waist, having been some time ago peeled off his shoulders based on the pattern of dirt smeared on his shirt; and his narrow-toed, heeled black leather shoes were gouged and scuffed. _

_Brennan glanced back towards the heavy oaken door to her bedroom, which was cracked slightly, with a soft, warm flicker of lamplight peeking through along the edge of the doorframe. Angelus followed her gaze once again, and his dark eyes brightened as a crooked smirk flashed across his lips._

"_I'm feelin' a bit worn down by this rough time I've had," he said with a snicker. "I could do with havin' me wounds tended to by a talented nurse such as yourself. And, since I know how hard I'll be...or, pardon, ya know, how hard it'll will be for one such as yourself to minister to one such as myself in my hour of need..." He laughed out loud at his own cleverness. "Well, I'll gladly see to it that you're properly rewarded for all your efforts, though to be perfectly honest, lass, bein' nursemaid to a man such as meself is a privilege of its own." He paused, gave her a bigger, lewd grin, and then added cheekily, "And I won't even ask ya to dress up like a nurse, lass. White was never your color, anyhow."_

_Brennan narrowed her eyes slightly, then turned back to face him._

"_Why do you need to be nursed, Angelus?" she asked, giving him a questioning look. "Surely it's not because you've missed my...delicate touch. Surely you know that such façades aren't necessary if you want to get laid."_

_"No," he said, hesitating slightly as his eyes scanned her robed form. "I donna like delicate touches. Touchin' delicate things? Aye. But when the shoe's on the other foot, I donna care for dainty pussyfootin' around." He licked his lips and shrugged. "Neither do you. I know you like it rough, too, aye? You like a good, rough givin' ta, don't ya?" _

_He took a step towards her and tilted his head to one side, licking his lips as he found his gaze again drawn to the open neck of her silk robe and to the glistening space between her breasts, which swayed gently as she moved, then brought his eyes back up to meet hers. _

"_Aye, lass, I know how much ya like it when I take ya, standin' up, pressed up against that nice wee wall over there. Ya like it when ya can feel me, poundin' into that tight snatch o' yours as if I was tryin' to hammer ya to that there wall with me cock like you were a pretty lil' picture. Takin' ya from behind like that, all ya see are my hands on the wall on each side o' your face and the wall in front o' ya. Or would ya rather me drill ya over there..." He gestured towards the hearth with a jerk of his chin. "On your back, right up that hot, tight little ass of yours...because holy hell, lass, I've never fucked an ass as good as yours, or heard anyone scream my name the way you do when I come in that hot ass of yours..." He grunted and rolled his shoulder to suppress a tingle that surged up his spine at the thought of it. "Aye, we should do that more often, really. I'm glad I had the honor of showin' ya how great ass-fuckin' could be, ya know, 'cause—"_

"_Angelus," she sighed, cutting off his lewd ramble. "One thing I've always valued in our interactions over the years is the fact that we've always been able to speak frankly to one another," she said tersely. "So quit dallying around. Are you going to just stand there like a fool blathering on, or are you going to tell me what really happened to you?"_

_His upper lip curled and his nose scrunched up in frustrated disdain. "You're a fuckin' piece of work, lass," he snorted as he walked across her sitting room towards the fireplace, jerking his soiled, sweat-soaked shirt out of the waistband of his trousers. He reached up and began to unbutton his shirt, wincing as he tried to pluck the buttons apart with his fingers._

"_What's wrong with your hand?" she asked him, seeing him struggle, but making no move to assist him. "I assume it has something to do with the rest of the reason as to why you're not your normally well-coiffed and carefully-manicured self?"_

"_They broke it," he said**, **looking down at his bruised, swollen hand, wincing as he tried to bring his thumb and forefinger together around a button. "Fuck," he hissed in frustration. He looked up at her and said petulantly, "We both know that you've always liked that I take care o' myself and dress a bit dandy for ya. You like that I have class. Come on, lass—admit it."_

_Brennan closed her eyes and shook her head. "I'll admit no such thing. Instead, quit trying to change the subject. Why don't you tell me who 'they' is, Angelus?" she sighed in a very condescending way. "Remember, specificity is a good thing."_

"_Specificity?" he snorted. "As in ya like it when I tell ya specifically what I'm gonna do to that sweet body o' yours?"_

_"Angelus," Brennan prompted him, her tone peaking in frustration. "Tell me. Who?"_

_He blinked, his jaw hardening as he stared at her, then said, "The fuckin' cunts in the fuckin' Tower, that's who." He fussed with his buttons once more, but growled as he couldn't form a grip with his broken hand. Angelus looked up at her, gritting his teeth and furrowing his brows, hesitating for a moment as he realized that she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of offering to help him unless he swallowed some of his pride and asked her. He sighed and then pouted with a huff, "Come on, lass—help me, please..."_

_Brennan smirked, then walked around and, batting his hands away from the placket of his shirt, began to unbutton it gently. She looked up at his face and saw his frustrated pout soften into a lazy, crooked-mouthed grin as his warm brown eyes glistened in the flickering light of the fire. _

"_So, what did you do to end up in the Tower this time, Angelus?" she asked, her lips pressed into a firm line as she plucked free the last of his buttons and pulled the shirt away from his broad, muscular chest. _

"_It wasn't anythin' much," he prevaricated as she continued to undress him, although his resolution to conceal from her the circumstances leading to his confinement in the Tower crumbled like a dry scone as he felt the pads of her thumbs brush across his nipples as she pulled off his shirt. He cleared his throat, which had suddenly grown a bit dry as he watched her move, as if in slow-motion, and his mind filled with the thought of all the wicked ways he could bury his already-hardening cock balls-deep in her. "But I donna want to talk about it, lass," he grumbled. "Can we change the subject now?"_

"_The Tower of London is hardly a place where you'd end up for disturbing the peace or brawling, Angelus," Brennan clucked at him, ignoring his question as she stepped away from him, leaving him frowning as he found himself suddenly bereft of her touch. "What? Did you try to stick those fangs of yours someplace they weren't allowed? Try and drain a member of the royal family again?"_

"_No," he said sourly, holding up his broken hand and looking at its bruised, swollen shape as he turning it over in the warm, yellowish lamplight of the sitting room. "I wouldn't make that mistake again. I'm not that dumb, Brennan, despite what you and Darla may think."_

_Angelus nibbled the inside of his lip for a moment and shrugged as he remembered the nineteen year-old girl he'd met one evening at the opera one cold February night in 1850. He thought of how he'd taken her—not really against her will, but more in what was a case of highly persuasive coaxing—in one of the dark corners of the opera house where he'd stumbled on her just before the start of the intermission, wandering by herself. She'd been a virgin—which had always amused Angelus, who never ceased to enjoy the moment a young lady's body gave in with a pleasing pop as her virginity was torn away from her—when he took her against a wall in the opera house._

_"How was I supposed to know she was the Queen's niece?" he asked. "I mean, 'twasn't like she stopped me in the middle o' me fuckin' her to say, 'Oh, kind sir, by the way, I'm Princess Elise of Hohenlohe-Langenburg.' She was too preoccupied with my cock blazin' a fine trail in that tight cherry pussy o' hers to think about much at all, and by the time I filled my belly with her sweet-from-her-very-first-fuckin' blood and let her pretty little husk fall to the floor, the damn intermission let out and the whole place started to fill with people and so..." He saw Brennan's impatient, unimpressed look and swallowed. "Come on, lass—I really didna know who she was..."_

_Nodding at him, she said, "Okay, then what was it?" She paused as she studied him for another moment and then said, "I haven't seen you in four or five days, I think, if I'm remembering correctly. Not since the night of—"_

"—_Darla's party," Angelus finished for her. "Aye, that's 'cause that's the night it happened."_

_Tilting her head, a look of clear interest writ on her face, Brennan asked, "What happened?"_

_A pleased look crossed Angelus' face when he realized that he had finally said something that had caught Brennan's attention. Licking his lips now that he realized he had an involved audience, the vampire said, "Well, after the party ended, and you and Darla decided to go about your own business, I went out for...heh...well, to get me a wee midnight snack, as it were, and found myself passin' a pub, The Horse and Hound, and o' course, because I would ne'er want it to be said that I e'er let a good pub pass me by, so I simply had to stop in for a wee dram, and—"_

_Brennan rolled her eyes as she stepped back, admiring the way the skin of his bare chest seemed almost golden in the firelight. "Because you didn't have enough to drink at Darla's party that night anyway, even though I saw you personally drain two bottles of Loch Lomond Scotch Whiskey?"_

_"Loch Lomond." Angelus rolled his eyes and snorted. "That shite was total bollocks," he spat. "Nasty swill that tasted like ass and didna do fuck all to get ya a nice buzz. There's decent Scotch whiskey, lass, I'll admit it, but that? That wasn't it. Why Darla fuckin' skimped on whiskey when she spent a king's ransom on oysters, Russian caviar, fine cheeses and all that happy horse-shite, I dunno. I told her to buy Jameson, Bushmills, or one o' the good Connacht whiskeys, but noooo..."_

_"Yes, yes, sweetness," she said with a smile. "So you couldn't get drunk off the cheap liquor you had endure at Darla's party, so you went out drinking afterwards..."_

_Angelus put his hands on his hips and cocked his head, wincing at the way his broken hand throbbed. He knew the fracture was already knitting together, but it was still painful and swollen, the skin drawn tight as a drum over his fingers. "Well, I went out to feed one need, you know," he said with a sly grin, "and just so happened to find me a way to feed another. Surely you're not sayin' there's any crime in that."_

"_You're rambling, Angelus," she snapped, her mood suddenly shifting decidedly more negative as his incessant babbling and self-absorbed lewdness began to annoy her once more. "You do what you want to—you always have, and I'm quite sure you always will."_

"_Aye," he said. "That's probably very true."_

_Rolling her eyes again, she then prodded him, "So why do you think they picked you up then?"_

"_I was tryin' to get to that part before you interrupted me," Angelus told her. "Now, if you'd let me continue, lass?"_

_Gesturing at him in a grand manner, Brennan said in a slightly mocking way, "By all means, Angelus, pray continue."_

_He grinned at her, ignoring her condescending tone, snickering before he spoke once more. "So, as I was sayin', I'd me a wee dram or two at the pub," he continued, before stopping for a moment as she shot him a knowing look, and he quickly amended his statement. "Or three, maybe, I don't know. I'm sure I lost count at some point."_

"_Right," she muttered sharply. _

_At the single sarcasm-ladened syllable, this time, it was Angelus who shot her a look that quickly silenced Brennan since he knew she wanted him to continue his story post-haste. She quickly nodded her concession to him, and smiling suavely, he continued._

"_As I was sayin', I was mindin' me own business, chattin' up a pretty lass in a bright yellow dress with nice titties that her low-cut dress happened to show off very nicely." A smile cracked the vampire's handsome, stubbled face and he flashed his eyebrows, then said, "I mean, donna get me wrong, those titties of hers don't have anythin' on yours, lass, 'cause you've always had the most wonderful tits I've ever seen. Big and round, jus' the right size for my hands, so perfect for squeezin', ya know, and those nipples o' yours are just the finest treat ever made for lickin' and suckin', well, 'cept for that fine, sweet pussy of yours, which just might be the best tastin' thing ever, and I jus' can't get enough of that cream o' yours and how tight that little bead you've got gets when—"_

"_Angelus..." she scowled at him._

_He licked his lips and grinned sheepishly when he met her impatient gaze. "Aye, lass," he chuckled. "So anyway, I'm chattin' up this young thing all the whilst her gentleman companion was on the other side o' the bar playin' darts and tryin' to make up the three pound he'd lost on the last game, and—"_

_Brennan closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Angelus," she grumbled, raising her eyebrows expectantly. "Get to the fucking point."_

"_Aye," he feigned a laugh, arching his eyebrow as he recognized the tone in her voice and puzzled at her shifting mood. "So anyway, I leaned over and was gettin' me a closer look at this wee lass's..." His eyes flickered up to meet hers. "Aye, and so anyway, the bloke got pissed off, I suppose, that I was makin' a move on his woman, and we started fightin' and, next thing I knew I was bein' hauled off and shackled. I mean, sure, I made a couple o' cracks about this soldier bloke not bein' able to finish the job down in the Transvaal against a bunch of Dutch-speaking yeoman farmers, but—"_

"_How is it that you managed to let them catch you?" she asked. "That's not like you at all."_

"_Let 'em catch me?" he snorted, grunting again as he reached down to unbutton his trousers as best he could with his hands while he continued to speak. "I canna tell if I should be flattered that you're thinkin' that I couldn'a been caught unless I let 'em catch me, or that you think I'm enough of a masochist that I'd a let 'em catch me knowin' I'd be hauled off to the Tower to get used like a fuckin' punchin' bag for two and a half days."_

"_I have never been inclined to flatter you, Angelus," Brennan quipped as she watched his hands, one of which was definitely swollen, skim over the smooth olive skin of his flat belly as he tried to thumb open his trouser button. "Your sizable ego doesn't seem to require any assistance in that regard," she said as she watched with amusement as he struggled to unfasten the button with his left hand. "And, sweetness, I'm still not yet convinced that, despite your own sadistic tendencies, you don't have some latent masochistic desires."_

_Angelus gritted his teeth and, growling in mounting frustration, tried to pluck open the button on his with his right hand, but his puffy forefingers and swollen, purple knuckles refused to cooperate. Letting out another grunt, he looked up at Brennan and became annoyed when he realized she was just watching him struggle. "For fuck's sake, lass. Help me," he grunted. "Or are you just gonna sit there watchin' me for your personal amusement? If I canna get these trousers off, we're not gonna be able to get to the better part of the evenin's entertainments."_

_Brennan snorted at his words. "And just why do you think that I am going to be the purveyor of this evening's entertainment, as far as you're concerned?" She paused for a beat and then added, "I believe you asked me to tend to your wounds and sad, sorry state. I agreed to that only."_

_He stared at her, suddenly feeling like a trapdoor had opened up beneath his feet, reminding him of the one time he'd actually had a trapdoor drop under him the night he found himself on a gallows in Northumberland during the reign of King George III. His left hand flew up, and he scratched the back of his head as he searched her face for some sign that she was merely teasing him, as she was often wont to do. _

"_Wait—you don't wanna fuck?" he asked, the simply-worded question falling from his lips in a way that left no doubt as to his surprise. "Come on, lass," he pleaded with her. "I know you want a tendin' to yourself, mmm? You know I'm good for it, never mind this bollocksed-up hand of mine. I'm always good for makin' ya come, screamin' like a fuckin' banshee." He paused for a beat to flash a charming grin at her with a self-assured nod. "You know I'll make ya feel good, the way you know only I can, lass," He told her. "So come on. Admit it. You know you want it, too." _

"_Maybe I don't," Brennan said as she crossed her arms and lifted her chin in defiance of him. "There is more to my life than coming, Angelus. I know there isn't for you on most nights, but there is for just about every other individual on this earth, including myself."_

_Angelus looked up at her incredulously as she held his gaze, unable to believe what he was hearing. Then, his eyebrows narrowed, and he gave her a knowing smile as he snickered, "You're a liar, lass."_

_Arching her eyebrows, she tilted her head and then said with a hard, narrow-eyed stare, "I'm many things, but never a liar, Angelus...unlike some." She shook her head as she made a disdainful _pffffft _sound, then put her hands on her hips and bit the inside of her lip, her skin flushing with warmth as her nostrils flared at his insolence. _

"_You're playin' then," he said, hedging slightly as his frustration mounted. "You're always up for a good fuck, lass—and you know I always deliver when you need a good fuckin'—so why play me this way, huh? You're a woman of tremendous appetites, just like I'm a man who—"_

"_Surely I can't be the only option for satisfying your biological urges," she said sharply. "So, really, Angelus, why did you come here tonight? I'm sure there are plenty of other beds in London you could've stumbled into, from Darla's to Drusilla's to a Southwark's strumpet and many others in between. So, why did you really come here?"_

"_What are you talkin' about?" he asked, his dark, hungry eyes skimming along the length of her neck, along the hem of her silk robe. Her skin was deeply flushed, even more so than it had been when she opened the door just a minute before, when he'd noted her normally porcelain decolletage was slightly pinkened and glistened with sweat. "Huh?" he grunted, his nose scrunching a bit as he sniffed for the smell of her arousal, his brow furrowing as he detected it more faintly than he'd expected. Crestfallen, he looked down at his feet with a pout, then looked back up at her and muttered, "I mean, fuck. 'Biological urges?' What the fuck's that got to do with anythin'?" He toed off his boots, muttering under his breath as he kicked them to the side. "And I came here because I wanted to see you. Why the fuck else would I have come here?"_

_Shrugging her shoulders, Brennan said sharply, "Oh, I don't know. After all, it has been some time since I've been lucky enough to have you grace me with your presence, Angelus."_

"_Wait, what are ya talkin' about, lass?" he said in a low, dark voice, his words falling from his lips slowly and deliberately in a way that was uncharacteristic for him. "You've been actin' like you could give a shite whether I was here or not since the very first moment you deigned to let me enter your illustrious abode here, and that's sure been leavin' me thinkin' I made a fuckin' mistake comin' here tonight. But now you're all cheesed off 'cause I been neglectin' ya these last couple o' months?" He paused for a beat, shooting her a sharp look. "Never mind that you're the one that fuckin' shogged off to wherever the fuck you went ta, with no damn warnin' or anythin'. I'm surprised you even bothered to tell me 'bye' before you went off. I damn near fell outta my chair the other night when I saw ya..." He looked away and sighed, then turned back to her. "I canna believe it. I didn'a even know where you went, for fuck's sake. And you were gone awhile, lass—without a word from ya at all, so you can hardly blame me for lookin' 'round for some female company to keep, ya know."_

_For a moment, Brennan was tempted to react to Angelus' implication that he had, on some level, perhaps missed her presence for whatever his reason. But, then she thought better of it when she focused on his final sentence which implied a subject of immediate vexation on her part. "Female company?" she repeated, with a curl of her lip and a deadly edge softening her silky voice when she spoke. "So, that's what you call her, then?"_

_Angel's eyes narrowed as he recognized the shift in Brennan's tone for what it was and tilted his head at her as he tried to figure out what he'd said that had caused the dangerous change in her disposition. "Huh?" he grumbled. " 'Her' who? What the fuck are you talkin' about, lass?"_

_The look of hate that flashed across Brennan's face made her almost seem to be a completely different person for the few seconds that Angelus saw it. It made her seem dangerous and unpredictable—two qualities that he rarely saw in the witch in recent years and their indication that so-tightly controlled Brennan was teetering on the edge of being out of control excited Angelus in more ways than one. However, any ideas of using his considerable skills to either cajole or goad Brennan into fucking him right there on the spot suddenly evaporated with a single question that she hurled at him with all the venom and hatred of which he knew her to be completely capable._

"_If you don't know of what I'm speaking, Angelus," she hissed at him, "Why don't you ask Helen about it? Because I'm quite sure she'd be more than happy to fill you in on all the details...and perhaps attend to your needs tonight as she's apparently done quite frequently over the years."_

_Angelus' face suddenly paled at her words as he realized he'd been caught in a lie. His nostrils flared again, and he could smell the peppery note of her anger fill his nose as he felt a swirl in his belly as the one thing he could never control or predict—her deep and roilingly passionate temper—threatened to break against him like a storm gathering on the horizon getting ready to assault the earth at a time when he was completely unprepared to deal with it. _

"_Helen?" he rasped, trying to buy some time to prepare himself for whatever onslaught she was sure to throw at him. "You...know about her?"_

_A knowing smile spread across her face as she nodded vehemently, "Why, yes, yes I do...and have for quite some time, Angelus."_

"_How?" he snarled. "Because I'm quite certain that you haven't been havin' tea and crumpets with the likes of her, lass. She's a bit too...flashy for your tastes, I think, compared with the normal company you like to keep."_

_Brennan's cold eyes, somehow, seemed to harden even further as she narrowed her gaze at him. "If by normal company you mean that I prefer to keep company with people that have the ability to be coherent at least twenty minutes a day before descending into their incoherently mad and delusional stupor, then yes," Brennan snapped. "She isn't quite to my tastes—she never has been and never will be...to say nothing of her irritating high pitched voice, incredibly high opinion of herself, and the fact that she has absolutely no class so that she'll flop down and spread her legs for just about any stiff prick that will rut between them."_

"_If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times—I don't rut, lass," he huffed. "I fuck. I fuck, an' I fuck well. And mine's not just any stiff prick, an' you damn well know it. My cock's a fuckin' paint brush in the hand of a master, and the woman lucky enough to feel it 'tween her legs is a blessed canvas. No woman who's been fucked by me would e'er let some other nasty prick near her and ever think that what I done to her is any kind o' ruttin' at all."_

_Rolling her eyes at him, Brennan waved her hand dismissively. "Fine," she said. "It's true, you are...talented...in certain areas. But the fact of the matter is, I don't like to keep the same social circles that Helen does, but for some irritating reason she sees herself as my equal, and she chooses to keep the same social circles as me."_

"_What a crock of fuckin' shite," Angelus coughed in disbelief as he shook his head. "Quit mincin' words, lass. It's not your style, and it's just not becomin' on ya, mmm? This ain't about you havin' some hussy infiltratin' your precious social circles or bollocks like that." He rolled his eyes and snorted. "So you've got a problem with Helen," Angelus continued. "And, after that whole rant, you're tellin' me me fuckin' her has nothin' to do with at least makin' you angrier?"_

_Arching an eyebrow at him, Brennan said, "That's exactly what I'm saying, yes."_

_Angelus' dark brown eyes, their irises so dark that they were almost black, flashed for a moment before he smiled a suave smile at her. "Horseshite, lass," he chuckled. "Come now, mmmmm? We both know I know ya well enough to know when you're full of it. Granted, I'll be the first to admit that you're confident enough in ye'self and this wee arrangement of ours to not let this damn fine and oh-so-fuckable anger o' yours be jus' 'cause of me tuppin' Helen from time to time, you're a damn liar if you expect me to believe it doesn't irk you at least a wee bit."_

_Her nostrils flaring, Brennan finally admitted to him, "Fine. Fuck it. Yes, I'm annoyed...but not because of what you think."_

"_Oh?" Angelus said, clearly amused at her easy confession since he'd expected her to deny it in that stubborn way of hers that both simultaneously infuriated and inflamed him a bit longer before she actually confessed. "Then tell me. What's really got your pretty knickers in a twist, hmmm?"_

_Pointing at him, Brennan said, "Aside from the fact that even if she has a nice pair of tits, I expect even you to have some standards—"_

"_Aye," Angelus interrupted her with a sharp bark of laughter. "Well, there's a mistake you know better than to make, lass."_

_Ignoring him but for another flash of anger in her animated blue eyes, Brennan continued, "I detest being lied to, Angelus. You know I don't care who you fuck, but I detest the fact that you felt a need to conceal your rutting with Helen from both Darla and Drusilla, albeit poorly even for you, to the point that even dotty Drusilla knew I'd be pissed at the melodramatic subterfuge."_

"_Hey," he grunted. "I told ya, lass. I don't rut like some farmer's wee billygoat. I fuck." He narrowed his eyes. "Now, see, I'm onto ya an' your witchy tricks. You're jus' tryin' to piss me off."_

_She rolled her eyes, dismissing him with a _pffft. _"Angelus, if you want to fuck her, fuck her. You do what and whom you want—you always have and always will, just as I do. And, frankly, that's fine by me."_

_Tilting his head, Angelus smiled. "As ever, that's one of the things I've always respected about you, lass. There's no bullshite here."_

"_No, Angelus," Brennan agreed, some of her anger abating. "Too right you are—I'm definitely no bullshit. So, knowing that as you do, tell me—why all the skulking about, mmmm, since it's not like I'd ever need to feel threatened by the likes of her?"_

_His eyebrows furrowed at her remark. "Aye, now wait," he said. "You didna ever care who I fucked before, as long as I made sure not to come to ya stinkin' of her when I came back to your bed." He angled his head to one side and shot her a deeply skeptical look. "So why do ya even give a piddling shite about her at all? Surely you're not jealous, lass."_

_Brennan laughed out loud at his last sentence and then shook her head. "It's not like you'd really ever choose her over me, so what would I need to be jealous over?" she said as she crossed her arms. "If that twat ever gave you an ultimatum—me or her—I know I wouldn't need to fear coming in second."_

_Angelus arched his eyebrow and grinned. "You sure about that, lass, mmm?" he asked. "Because maybe she's a real good fuck, ya know, and maybe you should be a wee bit threatened, mmm?" He narrowed his eyes and then jerked his chin up at her as he added, "I might be if I were you."_

_Laughing at him, Brennan suddenly had the exact opposite response that Angelus had intended, causing him to frown a bit when she said, "Oh, please, Angelus."_

"_What?" he croaked._

"_We both know the type of woman I am," Brennan said, her gaze suddenly shifting again as she uncrossed her arms and took a step towards him. "Otherwise, you wouldn't be here, aye?"_

"_Aye?" he snorted. "Since when'd ya start talkin' like the lasses in the old country, huh? So, you gonna start drinkin' fine Irish whiskey and fine Irish teas now? Next thing we know you'll be completin' the holy trinity and suckin' good Irish cock, hmmm? Which would be a damn fine thing if ya did." _

"_We'll have to see about that," she said, "but I wouldn't hold your breath. Metaphorically speaking, of course." After a moment, she narrowed her eyes and yanked his attention back to the question she'd posed. "Like I said, you know the kind of woman I am, and you know I am threatened by no one—no man, and certainly by no woman." _

"_Aye," he confirmed. "There is that." He paused and then said, "And I'd like to get back to the reason I came here, remember, lass? You, me, and me bein' tended to by your delicate touch?"_

"_If you're lucky," Brennan taunted him softly. "But?"_

"_But," Angelus smiled again, pleased she sensed his condition. "First, I'd be of a mind to know who tipped you off to me and Helen since it's been some time since she and I were last...ehhh, well...cavortin' as it were."_

_Brennan was quiet for a moment as she held the vampire's intense gaze before she nodded at him by way of beginning her response. "I think we both know," she began. "That I wouldn't be lying if I said that I got more than an earful upon my return from Somerset to Darla's dinner party a few days ago from your sire and your spawn."_

"_Oh?" Angelus said, knowing he needed to be careful not to press her in that moment lest she not tell him a bit of information that, for some inexplicable reason, he felt very keen on having in that minute. "So you're tellin' me that your bein' all pissed off at me and Helen isn't because Darla and Dru have been telling tales out o' school about me, hmmm?"_

"_No," Brennan said with a shake of their head. "Because, you see, they learned of it themselves from your very sweet and extremely charming friend, the poet, William—"_

"_Fuckin' William," Angelus hissed**,** his lower jaw sliding forward as his brown eyes darkened to the color of pitch. His unbroken hand clenched into a fist as he visualized his hands closing around his grandchilde's throat as he crushed the vampire-poet's trachea beneath his thumbs. "Drusilla wanted a little friend of her own, so that's how we got the boy-poet. Should've known the fool, with his gift for the gab and way with words, would open his big damn mouth when he shouldn't have. A vampire can pick his childe, but not his grandchilde. Piss on 'im, that boy."_

_Brennan's lips broke into a wicked grin even as her pale blue eyes stared rigidly into his. "So, out of purely intellectual curiosity, how long were you going to keep fucking her behind my back without me finding out, Angelus?" she asked. "I'm of half a mind to stake both of you for sneaking around behind my back and the insult of lying to me. I mean, sure, it's been a while, and I know you've been busy with your lovely childe, that weird little Miss Talks-to-the-Furniture, and my old friend Darla, of course. And, it doesn't really bother me, Angelus, if you twist the sheets with another woman, as long as you don't come slinking over here expecting me to lay back and spread my legs for you while you still stink of that other woman's cunt. In general, as I said, I think we both know that I'm well aware that you aren't a monogamous creature..." Her voice trailed off as she then twisted her lips into a particularly devious smile and added, " And, to be fair, despite the purely coincidental empty state of my bed this night, either am I."_

_Angelus narrowed his eyes and took a couple of steps, closing the distance between them until he could feel the silk of her loosely-knotted robe brushing up against the bare skin of his chest, which made his flat male nipples tighten at the contact. "Aye," he laughed. "So is it the empty state o' your bed this night that's got you in such a nasty mood, hmmm? Let me guess. You've been hard up these last few weeks, sorely in need of a good, solid fuckin' to put ya in the right frame o' mind? Is that it, huh? Is that why you're baiting me this way? You want to get me all riled up and make me so fuckin' crazy so that I finally get pushing into givin' ya the nice hard fuckin' ya want?" He licked his lips as his nostrils filled with the smell of her sweat and his eyes roved up from the glistening space between her breasts up to the base of her neck, over her rosy lips up to her glittering blue eyes. "Or, rather, maybe 'tis something else entirely?" _

_He fell silent for a moment, then made a humming sound in his throat before he shook his head and spoke again._

"_You're jealous, lass," he snickered. "You're jealous of Helen, that she's had a bit more of me in the last few years than you have."_

_She threw her head back and laughed darkly. "What a crock of fucking shit," she snorted. "I'm not jealous of anyone. Why should I be? I'm not jealous of that blood-sucking twat Helen, of Darla, of Drusilla, or any other woman that walks this earth, human or otherwise. I don't care how many women, demons or female mammals you take to your bed, Angelus, as long as you don't come here reeking of them or—"_

_Angelus grunted his acknowledgement of her long-standing condition of their continued association. His grunt, combined with the look her shot her, seemed to appease her somewhat since the hardness in her eyes seemed to soften a bit, enough so that Angelus gauged she was closer to being once more amenable to tending to his needs. He felt a flash of want in the pit of his belly and his groin tighten with a sudden jerk. Deciding to test his theory, he leaned in, he reached up, and cupped the palm of his healthy hand around her jaw as he covered her lips with his. He slid his tongue along the cleft between her soft lips and her mouth parted, and he kissed her, deeply if briefly, pulling away just as her tongue twirled against his and her quiet moan of pleasure filled the space between their grasping mouths._

"_So ya are willin' to tend to me hurts, aren't ya, lass?" he asked as he pulled his mouth away from hers, a lazy grin spilling across his face as he spoke._

"_Mmmm," she murmured back, sucking in a deep breath of air as she licked the taste of his kiss from her lips with clear satisfaction. watched her as she reached up, drawing her finger down the long line from the notch at the base of his neck, over his sternum, between his pectoral muscles and finally over his navel, pausing momentarily before bringing the other hand up to unfasten his trousers. She plucked open the button closure at the top of his trousers, glancing up to gauge his reaction. "See how easy that was?" she inquired with a half-grin. "All you had to do was be honest. I know it's against your nature, sweetness, but everyone's better off when we're honest with each other, I think." She proceeded to pluck open the four buttons of his fly. "Yes, I think everyone's happier this way...and that you're one very lucky vampire that I'm such an...understanding individual like I am."_

"_Understanding?" he grunted with a jerk of his chin. "You, lass? Understanding?"_

_Nodding slowly, she tilted her head with a small smile. "Indeed, Angelus. Seeing as how I willing to understand that because of that oversized gigantic ego of yours, I'm willing to overlook the fact that for some strange reason you think you can get things past me. You might be able to do that with others, sweetness, but never me, right? That's why honesty really is your best policy with me since I know everything...or, at least, I eventually do, hmmm?" She punctuated her final words with a particularly vicious tug of his trousers._

"_Maybe," he gasped as he felt her shove his wool trousers over his hips, the rough fabric sliding over the knee-length union suit shorts he wore underneath. He gritted his teeth and sucked in a sharp breath of surprise as she unbuttoned the front of his underwear and snaked her hand into the gaping fly, curling her fingers around his hardening flesh. "Holy hell, lass," he hissed, grunting as she tightened her grip._

"_Is that what you wanted?" she asked, pumping him in her hand, feeling him harden in her palm with each stroke. "Because, I think since you just kissed me, it's definitely what I want right now..." She jerked him harder, grinning at seeing the cordlike sinews of his neck tighten and a low growl rumble in his throat. "At least," she continued, a tiny wavering in her voice the first sign that her firm resolve to resist his sensual wiles as she felt her own body starting to respond with want of him despite her best planned efforts to keep her own arousal at bay, "that's part of what I want. I want more, Angelus, but, really, but more than anything else...it really comes down to one thing." She closed her fist more completely around his thick length. "A little honesty, mmm?" She raised her chin and smirked as she watched his dark eyes squeeze shut as the muscles of his chest, arms and abdomen tensed and tightened. "That's all I wanted. I fucking hate being lied to, Angelus. Being deceived." _

_She slowed her movements, languidly drawing her hand up and down his shaft, dragging his skin over the hardening flesh as he groaned, gradually closing her fist more tightly around him as she watched him clench his teeth as he struggled to hold himself together under her caresses. Seeing and feeling him respond so quickly and completely to her touch set off a strong pulse of liquid heat between her legs. Brennan swallowed as she felt her resolve crumbling rapidly. _

"_Nnnnnngth," Angelus grunted, jerking his hips into her hand. "You fuckin' want it, don't ya, lass? You could barely wait to fish me outta my trousers so you could feel me again, the way you been missin' me all this time, huh? Now, don't lie, remember? Things work best between us when there's honesty, aye? I can smell it. You want me and badly. So this ain't about no lyin'—it's about you bein' sick o' lyin' in that bed o' yours rubbin' yourself off for want o' me, wadn't it?"_

"_You have no fucking idea, do you?" she hissed, the flash of want she felt between her legs now dimmed as her frustration mounted with each syllable that passed from his mouth. She pulled the inside of her lip between her teeth and bit down hard, nearly drawing blood as she tried to regain control of herself. "You're only capable of learning the hard way, evidently. That's why I had a friend of mine, actually a friend of both mine and Darla's, who knows a captain with the Metropolitan Police, have his acquaintance follow you over to the Horse and Hound."_

_Brennan gave his flesh one more firm stroke, watching the skin slide slowly over his glistening tip before she pulled it back again with a sharp jerk and stopped her movements altogether. She licked her lips and brought her gaze up to meet his now-opened eyes which stared back at her wide with surprise._

"_Wait," he rasped. "You...you...you're sayin' that you got me thrown into the Tower?"_

_Brennan smiled and shrugged, but didn't release her grasp on him. "I had to find a way to get your attention," she said. "To remind you of that which you seemed to have forgotten, Angelus...and to punish you just a little bit for the insult of thinking you could pull one over on me."_

"_So you got me tossed in the fuckin' Tower?" he roared. "I canna fuckin' believe it, lass. You fuckin' did this to me? Holy hell. You fuckin' two-faced cuntish bitch." _

_He gritted his teeth and grunted loudly, taking a half-step back before the sudden and painful jerk he felt at the base of his cock reminded him that she held his most sensitive flesh in a tight fist. _

"_You're a wicked woman, lass. Wicked and fuckin' mad as a hatter," he muttered at her before he looked up with another jerk of his chin. "I knew I liked you for some fuckin' reason."_

_He glanced down and, for reasons he did not understand, felt himself harden even more at the thought that she'd actually been angry enough about his perceived infidelity to concoct a scheme to have him thrown in the Tower. He leaned his head back and swallowed, silently swearing that he'd sooner die than admit such a thing aloud to her. _

"_Aye, you've finally cracked, lass," he told her. "But I still like it even if I should fuckin' rip your throat out for doin' that to me."_

"_Oh, please, Angelus," Brennan scoffed at him. "If I didn't know better, I'd say that being around Helen has let her melodramatic tendencies rub off on you. First, we both know that's an empty threat since you aren't going to do anything to me that I don't want you to do to me. Second, it's not like I thought they'd really hurt you since we both know that with your...nature...it's a simple enough fact that you'd heal up well enough no matter after a couple or three good, solid nights of feeding and fucking from what they did to you. Besides, even if that weren't the case, we both know that you've gotten out of much more dire circumstances than that. I knew you'd finagle your way out of there before too long easily enough—though I must admit I'm surprised it took you two whole days to escape..."_

"_I can't believe you," he muttered, glancing down again to admire the sight of her slender-fingered hand wrapped around his erect cock before closing his eyes with a hiss, shaking his head and bringing his gaze to hers. "All that was your doin'?"_

_Brennan blinked her amply-lashed eyes prettily and grinned, hesitating before she answered his question._

"_Well, it was my idea, yes," she confessed. "But, I'd be remiss if I didn't admit Darla's, Drusilla's, and William's assistance in the matter."_

"_William's assistance?" he growled. "Aye, and a fine lot of assistance he was, mmm? That's why you're a-standin' here with my big, fine, hard cock in your hand, because that limp, soft, pencil-dicked tyke couldn't get the job done with that pathetic excuse of a wee prick he's got tucked in his trousers. An' I'm sure that Darla an' Dru chipped in 'cause they were cranky and cheesed off because neither o' them had gotten the kind o' fuckin' they needed since—"_

_He coughed, and his rant came to an abrupt halt when Brennan gave his cock a sharp tug, drawing his tender skin over his red, swollen tip before jerking it back again. "Oh, Jesu'," he hissed. "Fuckin' hell, woman."_

"_Oh, come on, Angelus," Brennan said. "Besides, it's not like I've never not amply rewarded you for any confinements you've endured as a result of me or my efforts, hmmm?" she asked, tightening her grip on him as she finally began to move her hand again in slow, even strokes that surprised Angelus enough that he winced and bit down on his lower lip. "Isn't that so?"_

"_Aye," he said. "Fuck yes." He swallowed hard and stepped back with a stumble as his knees wobbled a little. He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head firmly, uttering a long growl between his clenched teeth as a part of him rebelled at being manipulated this way. "You're a fuckin' piece o' work, you crazy witch. Why're you doin' this, lass? You get off on torturin' people, huh? Is this some kind o' new kink you been holdin' out on me about?" He sucked a sharp hiss between his teeth as the heel of her hand brushed against his tightening balls. "Fuck, lass," he whispered, closing his eyes as he surrendered himself to the feeling of being enveloped by her warm palm and fingers. "You want me to drill you into that damn wall o'er there? Just you keep this up."_

_Brennan shook her head. "No," she told him. "That won't be happing, Angelus—"_

_Angelus promptly cut her off. "Ohhh, fuck," he grunted. His eyes snapped open again, and he regarded her with a dark, smoky glare as his mouth curved into a lewd, crooked smile. "I told ya. I can fuckin' smell ya, lass. You can't ever lie to me lass about this, you know. I can smell it when you want a good hard fuckin' from a damn mile away. That tight, hot pussy o' yours is drippin', lass, just drippin' 'cause you wanna get fucked. You wanna good fuckin', don't ya, lass? You want me to do that to ya, huh? Lemme give it to ya, then, mmm? The way only I can give it to ya. Hard and fast, aye? Drillin' ya so hard ya can't barely breathe but ya don't care 'cause your whole body's on fire from the fuckin' you're gettin'. Or maybe long, deep an' so slow that you donna know where my cock ends and your sweet, hot pussy begins. Or maybe I can take ya in that tight little arse o' yours, since ya like it when I do that, mmm? Stretchin' ya out while I pound into ya. Oh, holy hell, there's no woman on earth or any of all the hells with a better, tighter, prettier, juicier ass than you've got, lass. Come on, just admit ya want a good fuckin' and tell me how ya want me to give it to ya, and—"_

"_No," Brennan said flatly. "I've had a long night, Angelus, and as much as I'd like to tend to all of your needs now that we've had this lovely little chat of ours, I really can't. I'm just not able to do any of that." _

_His eyes snapped open and his mouth fell open. "What?" he grunted. "O' course ya will. Why would ya?"_

"_I just can't, Angelus," she said, loosening her grip on him again. "Not now. But let me do this thing for you, right now, sweetness, so I can take the edge off of things and you can go home, and then tomorrow evening, you can come back, and we'll see about what other kinds of entertainments we can find, mmm?" She closed her fist again and began to stroke him again in long, firm, determined jerks._

_Angelus arched his head back and gave a long, low sigh through lips that were roundly pursed, but he didn't utter a word as he thickened in her grasp. His broken hand hung uselessly at his side as his other hand reached up to brace himself, fisting the silky sleeve of Brennan's robe as she jerked her hand back and forth, occasionally swiping the pad of her thumb over his weeping, swollen tip and grinning at the sound that rumbled from his throat when she did it._

"_Ohhh, fuck," he groaned. "Ohhhhh...ohhh sweet hell, lass...ohhhhhh, fuck!" He sucked in a sharp breath between his teeth, almost a backwards hiss, as he swallowed hard. _

"_Mmmm," Brennan murmured as she felt his balls tighten against the edge of her fist. "You like that, don't you? The way I touch you, like no other woman does?"_

_Angelus growled, then his gritted teeth parted, and his mouth fell open in a low moan. _

"_Ohhhhhh...ooooohhhh...nnngggth...ohhh, fuck..." He felt the floor begin to spin beneath his feet as everything seemed to collapse around him, and all he could feel was her, and how great she felt, and a bead of sweat dribbled down his temple and fell onto his shoulder as he leaned his head back and gritted his teeth once more._

"_Ohhhhh..." _

_Angelus' dark eyes suddenly snapped open, and Brennan's gaze swiveled up to meet his as they heard a long, tortured moan cut across the room—a moan that was not his._

"_Nooooooo," the anguished voice cried out from behind the heavy door to the bedroom. "Please...no...noooo..."_

_He batted Brennan's hand away, wincing at the jerk and the subsequent loss of contact, and his lips curled in a grimace as he grunted, "What's that? Who's there?" He quickly tucked himself back into his trousers, pulling his suspenders up over his bare shoulders and not bothering to button his fly as he took a step forward, pushing Brennan aside with his thickly-muscled forearm as he made his way toward to the bedroom._

"_You keepin' someone here?" he asked, pushing the door open with the side of his broken right hand. "You fuckin' somebody else behind my back, huh?" He glanced over his shoulder to gauge her response as the heavy door creaked open. "You been lyin' to me, lass? Ha. So much for fuckin' honesty between us, huh? You some kind o' hypocrite now or what?"_

_Angelus snapped his head around, glanced into the lamp-lit room and found a woman seated in a dark, thick-legged walnut chair. Her hands were bound behind her back, and her ankles were tied to the front legs of the chair, leaving her thighs spread apart. She was completely stripped but for a sweat-stained, blood-spattered ivory silk chemise, her face, neck and chest marred with tacky streaks of half-dried blood, the smell of which sent a raw tingle of pleasure shooting up Angelus' spine. The woman's head was slumped forward, her sweat-damp black hair matted as it hung over her forehead. She groaned again and slowly raised her battered, bruised face and opened her brown eyes—as much as possible, considering her eyelids were nearly swollen shut—to meet his._

"_Angelus," she murmured with puffy, lacerated lips, her cheeks perking up as she attempted a smile at hearing the sound of her lover's voice. A streak of blood ran down from the corner of her mouth over the curve of her cleft chin. "My dark prince," she said, her mouth hanging open as she uttered a happy gasp. "I knew it. I knew it. I just knew it. He came. Like I knew he would. Just like I believed. I just wanted one more minute with him, to feel our love, to bask in it, and he came. He's come to me, at last, my one true love..." _

"_Helen?" he said, his mouth falling open in abject shock. His eyebrows flew up in surprise as he took in the sight of her, his groin and chest both tightening at him personally seeing the first demonstration of brutality on Brennan's part since the night twenty years earlier he awoke, strung up from her rafters, to find her wiping the blood of two slain men off her silver blade. _

_Narrowing his eyes, he turned to Brennan and asked, "What did you do to her?" He narrowed his eyes and stared at Helen's beaten form for a few seconds, still somewhat taken aback by the extent of the beating that Brennan had given her. "I mean, holy fuckin' hell, lass. All my teasin' aside, I never really thought...I didna' think you were into other women, lass. Maybe I was wrong about you an' Darla, after all. I thought you two knew each other well because of all the cups o' tea you've chatted o'er all these years. Maybe you been sharin' more than crumpets with her, aye? So, you missed me enough that ya took ta' fuckin' another lass to keep the edge off, huh?"_

"_As ever, you flatter yourself," Brennan retorted sharply. "And we've been over this before, sweetness. I have no interest in the affections of other women. None whatsoever. To each his or her own, I say, but that has and never will be something that excites me in any way whatsoever."_

_Angelus rolled his eyes. "So ya gonna tell me why you have another woman, stripped damn near naked and tied up in your bedchamber, trussed up like a Christmas goose?" '_

"_We had to have a talk," Brennan replied, her voice gray and devoid of any apparent feeling. "It was one thing, her thinking she could fuck you. That was your doing, in large part, so I couldn't hold that entirely against her. But she didn't know when to leave well enough alone."_

"_Noooo," Helen moaned. _

"_Shut the fuck up, you stupid cunt," Brennan grunted, stepping forward and retrieving her silver dagger from the pocket of her silk robe and brandishing it in the dim light of her bedroom. She rolled the handle of the dagger in her hand before bringing its tip along the space between Helen's breasts and up to her chin. Brennan flicked the sharp point over her chin, breaking the skin and watching with a smirk as the blood welled up in the cut. _

"_Lass," Angelus said, reaching up and placing his uninjured left hand on Brennan's shoulder. "Come on, now, mmm?"_

_She shrugged off his touch and glared at him, her lips curled in disgust. "What do you want, Angelus?"_

_"You know what I want, lass," he said with a wicked grin. "An' it donna have anythin' to do with this. Let 'er go, mmm?" He paused for a beat as Brennan's head snapped up, and her eyes flashed a dangerous blue at him. "Now stop that," he growled at her. "It's not like that."_

"_Oh?" she snapped. "Then how is it?"_

"_It's not 'cause I give a wee rat's ass about this cheap piece o' baggage, in case ya were wonderin', aye," he told her defiantly. "But it's because all this nonsense is takin' up too much of your precious energies and I for one would much rather see ya investin' those energies in a wicked round o' fuckin' rather than whatever...games ya been playin' here." Angelus licked his lips as he inhaled the smell of Brennan's sweat, rich with the spicy scent of anger. "So come on, lass—let's be done with this so we can get to makin' the most o' the evenin', mmm?"_

"_Well, no," Brennan shook her head. "That won't be happening, I'm afraid. So you can take your honeyed brogue, charming smile, and smooth lies and get the fuck out because you've come in rather late in this thing that's between Helen and I." _

_Angelus considered her response for a moment and then asked in a curious voice, "So, how long have you been goin' at this...wee lil' pastime o' yours, lass?"_

_All of a sudden, the bound brunette's head snapped up as she sputtered, "She's kept me here for—"_

_Walking up to Helen without saying a word, Brennan proceeded to extend her right hand and slap the other woman as hard as she could across the mouth, drawing blood as Helen's scabbed-over busted lip began to bleed again once more. Retracting her hand, Brennan smiled coldly at Helen as she said in a simple, even voice, "Now, did I say you could open that filthy, fucking mouth of yours, Helen?" Brennan paused for a beat, her smile broadening as she glared at the other woman for a few seconds, and then shook her head as she continued. "No, I think not." Turning away from the bound vampire, Brennan looked at Angelus. "Now, why does it matter to you, Angelus? Don't tell me you were trolling for Helen before your unexpected stay in the Tower courtesy of my friend in the Metropolitan Police?"_

_Angelus narrowed his eyes. "What?" he coughed. "No—I wasn't lookin' for her. Like I told you, I was just gettin' me a wee dram o' fine Irish whiskey and chattin' me up a pretty little lass, just for fun, ya know." He laughed. "Ehhh, I didna say what kind o' fun, but suffice it to say she wouldna had to wait to see if her limp-dicked soldier boy—apparently just back from fightin' the Boers down in the Cape Colony—was gonna finish on top in his game o' darts, 'cause I was gonna make damn sure I finished her off on top."_

_Considering his snarky response, a true smile cracked Brennan's hard face before she asked him with an arched eyebrow, "Is that so?" When Angelus wagged his eyebrows in response, Brennan shrugged her shoulders and then finally answered. "Well, then, for your own personal edification, Helen has been here for about a week enjoying my...hospitality."_

_Angelus licked his lips for a prolonged moment, contemplating the delicious thought before he lifted his pitch-dark eyes to meet Brennan's impatient blue ones. "So tell me, lass, have you really been havin' at her—" At his words, Brennan gave him a hard glare that made him roll his eyes as he quickly amended his statement. "That is, you been torturin' her for a whole week?"_

_Narrowing her eyes as she standoffishly replied, "And what if I had, Angelus?" She paused a beat before she continued with a mocking tone coming into her voice that she knew would challenge him. "What would you say? Are you surprised?" She paused a second time, and then gave him a smile that would've curdled his blood had his heart still pumped it throughout his body, it was so cold and malevolent. "Or, have you forgotten exactly what I'm capable of, sweetness?"_

_Clearly turned on by her calculated ruthlessness, Angelus looked impressed when he swept his dark brown eyes up and down her lithe body. "I've forgotten nothin' about you, lass, absolutely fuckin' nothing. I remember everythin'..." This time it was his turn to stop for a beat before he tilted his head and told her, "Tell me what you've done to her."_

_Brennan stared at him, meeting his impressed gaze for a long moment. At last, apparently satisfied with what she saw, Brennan turned away from him to a small circular dark cherry wood side table. She reached for a silver dish and what looked like a silver utensil that was cradled on top of it. As she lifted it, a sloshing sound filled the air that was quickly followed by an involuntary whimper from Helen. At the sound, Brennan beamed happily before she finally answered the query that had been made of her. _

"_You want to know what I've done to her?" she asked him. "This crazy fucking bitch? Is that what you what to know, Angelus? Is it?"_

_Slowly, he nodded in reply. "Aye," he told her. "Tell me."_

_Tilting her head, Brennan complied as she explained, "Well, for starters, do you know what this is, Angelus?" She held the silver dish in one hand, but used her other hand to take the long silver utensil in hand as she lifted it up so that he could get a good look at what it was. "I know you've sacked enough nunneries and desecrated enough churches over the years to come across one or two of these in your time."_

_Angelus smirked and said, "Aye, lass, well—well, when I find me'self in a convent or church, the last thing I'm payin' attention to is the wee geejaws or trinkets that furnish the place, ya know. I'm far too busy takin' me liberties with the ladies o' the house to be fussin' with the silver, if ye know what I mean..." He narrowed his eyes and looked at the article, realizing it for the potential danger it represented to him, and then said, "Still...is that what I think 'tis?" _

_Her evil smile widening, Brennan tilted her head slightly as she replied, "If you think it's a silver bowl containing holy water taken from the sacred Chalice Well of the Red Spring nestled beneath Glastonbury Tor, a place of power to the women of my family going back well over a millennia, before it was blessed within the precincts of what was once Glastonbury Abbey, then the answer would be yes."_

_Turning away from Angelus, Brennan was going to set the bowl of holy water, and the silver utensil it contained, back on the table. But as she moved, she accidentally caught Helen's eyes. If such a thing were possible, the female vampire seemed to pale even further as she shrieked, "Keep that thing away from me you arrogant, uppity bitch!"_

_Helen's shrieks, normally a pleasant sound to Brennan's ears, merely served to infuriate and stoke her anger more than it was already was inflamed in that moment—not an easy thing to do either, given how furious Brennan already was with the vampire. Slowly, Brennan turned back away from the table and took a step closer to her would-be rival, still carrying the silver bowl in her hand as she walked. _

"_Oh, Helen," Brennan chuckled icily. "Oh, Helen, my sweet dear. You wound me. Your words really, really wound me." Her pale blue eyes flashed brightly for a minute as Brennan paused and then said, "So, now, of course, since you've hurt me, I'm going to have to hurt you, Helen. Because, remember, my sweet dear, the rule of three. Whatever you put out into the universe—positive or negative—it will always come back to you, come back on you stronger by a power of three." Lifting her hand, Brennan grasped the long silver utensil in her hand, dipped it into the water, and then lifted it high to fling it in the direction of Helen's face as she flicked her wrist three times. "Of course," Brennan chuckled. "I never said I'd be using words to wound you now, did I?"_

_Helen's screams pierced the air, but Angelus remained quiet as he watched the situation unfold with clear interest. As each droplet of holy water that scattered from the silver orb made contact with the flushed skin of Helen's face, the air filled with the sound of sizzling and popping as the woman's demonic flesh rebelled against the touch of the consecrated water. _

_Angelus watched and listened, his hands on his hips as his eyes darted from one woman to the other. He felt Brennan's raw and pulsing anger and complete disdain radiating off of her in waves, and his nostrils filled with two coalescing scents: one, the spicy smell of Brennan's smoldering jealousy and rage, and the other, the rich, smoky, and faintly sour scent of Helen's skin blistering with each flick of the orb, the latter of which reminded Angelus of the smell of pancetta frying in a cast iron skillet with capers. The brief memory of an evening he'd spent drinking grappa in a cucina in Vicenza was quickly shattered as Helen leaned her head back and shrieked again, twisting her head to one side as if she could somehow escape the drops of holy water that rained down Brennan's retribution on the ruined skin of her face._

_As he watched his longtime witch-lover assault Helen with the holy water, Angelus felt his already-aching balls tighten and the low, almost painful tugging in his belly signal that his body was once more rousing after Brennan's earlier ministrations were interrupted. This time, however, his cock strained at his trousers—which still gaped open, held up by his braces—but the want he felt for her ran deeper than he'd felt in years, and seemed to mount more and more with every howling cry that passed from Helen's battered mouth._

_When at last Brennan seemed satisfied with her work, the silver bowl not quite empty of holy water, even as fresh red welts bubbled up to mar Helen's once beautiful face, she gestured at Angelus with the utensil. It was about six inches in length, a long silver handle with a round piece of metal attached at one end. The orb was covered in holes through which the holy water could pass. Delicate Celtic knotwork decorated the metal handle even as Brennan grasped it._

_Smiling at Angelus, Brennan finally said, "I've always loved this aspergelium. It was a gift from Queen Jane Seymour to my mother before her death in October 1539. While Henry VIII formally ordered Oliver Cromwell to begin the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536, it took some years for the most powerful religious houses to be stripped. This aspergelium was taken from the altar in Glastonbury Abbey. Queen Jane loved my mother and knew she would treasure it. And she did. It was always one of her most prized possessions, along with a Book of Hours that my mother believed to have come from the Venerable Margaret's personal library. And, when my mother died, I inherited all her belongings including this trinket. And, I've always kept it with me and treasured it...although who knew it would be such a useful tool for dealing with devious and hateful bitches who need to be served their just desserts, hmm, Angelus?"_

"_Aye," he snickered. "Because there's nothin' more perfect in the world than a dagger-jabbin' witch slingin' holy water at the face of a blood-suckin' vamp who was fuckin' said witch's vamp gentleman friend." He cocked his head to the side and grinned at Brennan with a gleam in his dark eyes. "And for the wee sake of clarification, I am the gentleman to whom I was referrin'." Noting the way Brennan's eyes narrowed at his quip, he added, "And just so ya know, I canna tell ya how fuckin' hot it makes me watchin' ya, lass. I didna think ya still had it in ya after all these years—aye, but I'm a tellin' ya, I owe ya a fuckin' apology there, 'cause ya sure as fuck haven't lost your touch. No, ma'am." He licked his lips and took a step towards her. "Sweet fuckin' hell, lass, you make me want to take ya right fuckin' here, rip those goddamn clothes of your gorgeous body, and fuck your ever-lovin' brains out to hell right fuckin' now with whoever's watchin'."_

_Laughing at Angelus' rant, Brennan quickly flashed him a small if knowing smile at him before she finally took the bowl and dumped the remaining contents over Helen's protruding and ample decollage. The female vampire again screamed, convulsing in the chair, as she let out a slew of unintelligible curses. Brennan looked on in pleasure as she took a step back to view her handiwork. After a minute, Helen's cries faded to low hisses and slight whimpers. Brennan took that as a sign that she should continue her work. Moving back to the table, she set the empty bowl and her silver aspergelium down. She then reached for another item that was resting on the back part of the table. Grabbing a large silver cross in her hand, Brennan spun around and then advanced on Helen, brandishing the cross in her hand like it was another weapon—although, in a way, to Helen, as Brennan knew, it was a weapon to be feared...one of the deadliest kinds._

_The feeling of empowerment that Brennan felt as she walked towards Helen made her blood sing in a way that she had spent a very long time in recent years trying to forget. Knowing that she shouldn't take too much pleasure in the anger and pain she was reveling in, lest she lose herself completely, but with Angelus watching, she couldn't quite help herself. In some ways, with her new audience of one, she now was driven to show him exactly what she could still do if she was of a mind and was pushed too far. With Angelus watching her, it was no longer about teaching Helen a lesson and then ending her sorry excuse for a ancient vampire's life. No, instead, it was something that Brennan wanted to take pleasure in...and have Angelus see her take that pleasure as she tortured his one-time vampire lover._

_Taking a step closer, Brennan slowly lifted her hand and flashed the cross in front of Helen so the latter knew what was coming. Recognizing the familiar cross for what it was, since Brennan had used it many, many times on her during the past week when Helen had enjoyed her 'hospitality', the vampire shrieked again._

"_No!" she cried out. "Not that fucking cross. Not again, you crazy and possessive bitch. No! No, no, no!" she repeated with a burst of emphatic emotion that surprised even Brennan given what she'd put her through the prior week._

_Laughing at Helen's display, Brennan took the cross and pressed it to the vampire's left cheek. Helen jerked in her chair, the restraints and the weight of the chair to which she was snugly bound being the only things that kept her from falling down as she screamed. A sharp look came into Brennan's eyes as she shoved the cross more firmly against Helen's skin._

"_So, I'm the one who's a crazy and possessive bitch, Helen?" Brennan asked with a dark laugh. Shaking her head, she continued, "You know, I don't mind being called a bitch. I actually take it as a compliment. I'd rather be a bitch then a whackjob. Because you know what, Helen? That's what you are...you are a crazy fucking bitch who's a complete and utter whackjob, as in you need to be taken outside and killed." Brennan stopped long enough to see Helen's brown eyes flash at her in fear, nodded and smiled again. "Oh, don't worry, Helen. I promise you, when I'm done teaching you your lesson, and have made a proper example of you, never fear, my dear. I will be killing you. And, I'll be taking great pleasure in doing that. Do you know why?"_

_Sarcasm dripping from her puffy lips, Helen spat at her, "No, but I don't think I'm going to have a choice in hearing what other crazy shit you want to spew at me, so get on with it, Brennan."_

_Her smile widening, Brennan pulled the cross away from Helen's cheek, "I never liked you, Helen," she said. "I never did. Not from the very first time your arrogantly presumptuous slutty self slithered into the room and I had to make your very unpleasant acquaintance. I knew right from the very first second exactly what you were."_

"_And, what's that?" Helen rasped, her eyes darting quickly to Angelus' as she tried to read the flicker behind his smoldering brown eyes._

"_You're a user," Brennan said matter-of-factly, her jaw stiffening as she saw Helen's gaze briefly shift to Angelus. "And, I think that's why I disliked you from the very first. But, I really started to hate you when I realized what you did."_

"_And, what, precisely, Brennan, is it that I do that makes you want to kill me?" Helen snapped at her._

_Tilting her head, Brennan opened her mouth and then saw Helen's eyes dart in the direction of where Angelus stood. Raising her hand, Brennan took her index finger as she tsked the female vampire. "Oh, come now, Helen," she chuckled. "Really? Is that the best you have? Because if it is, you really are going to have to try harder."_

_Helen's pink tongue darted out from between her swollen, cracked and scarred lips as she responded, "What?"_

_Shaking her head, Brennan replied, "That won't work. I'll tell Angelus what you've been up to when I'm damn good and ready...and not a moment before."_

"_What?" Angelus coughed, as if he'd suddenly realized he'd been asked a question by a tutor while gazing out the window at a pretty girl passing by on the busy street. He blinked a couple of times, shifting his weight from one hip to the other as he tried to ignore the low, round ache deep in his groin that seemed to get worse and worse with each passing second as he'd watched Brennan work Helen over. "What's she done t'you, lass?" He thought to add, 'other than doin' me' but thought better of it as his eyes skimmed Brennan's cold glare._

_Turning around, Brennan answered Angelus' inquiry with a small shake of her head. "In due time, sweetness. In due time. First, though, Helen here needs to understand that she's been playing checkers to my chess for quite some time now."_

_As she slowly turned back to face the bound vampire, Brennan told her, "I've never made a secret of the fact that I've never liked you, Helen. But, you have no fucking idea how fucking glad I am that you've finally given me a valid excuse to wipe your sorry excuse for a vampire self off the face of this earth which you have blighted for far, far too many fucking centuries, you dumb fucking twit." _

_Brennan stopped for a moment, almost as if a new thought had suddenly occurred to her. Shaking her head, she continued, "You know, I've never really understood how you've managed, that, you know?" Nodding at her, Brennan clarified, "For as many centuries old as you allegedly are, how could you be so fucking dumb and not have managed to have run into a random piece of wood upon which you could do the world a favor and stake yourself?" She narrowed her eyes and then added, "And, by the by, I don't mean that as any type of advanced euphemism for some dumb asshole's hard cock. I know you don't really do subtle—have never done subtle since you're not smart enough. Indeed, for as smart as you think you are, it's actually too sophisticated a nuance for a troglodyte such as yourself to grasp. So, since it can't be said that I'm not kind or gracious, I'll explain why I'm going to take a very special stake that I've been saving for just such a special occasion as this one for a very, very long time.I'm going to take that lovely piece of blackthorn, and I'm going to enjoy very much using it to stab it through your withered and sorry excuse for a heart and so end your miserable existence."_

_Helen looked up through narrowed, swollen eyes and looked at her erstwhile lover, Angelus. Were it not for the fact that every limb and sinew in her body groaned with pain from the torture she'd suffered at Brennan's hands—her skin covered with welts, burns, cuts, bruises and gouges from the repeated beatings, holy-water dousings, candle-burns, punches, slaps, whippings and dagger-blows that Brennan had given her over the course of the week—she might've been aroused by the way he looked, standing there in a pair of soiled, rumpled trousers that gaped open at the fly, revealing the flat space below his navel that was covered with a faint shadow of hair before it disappeared into his undershorts, his chest bare but for a pair of dark gray suspenders that held up his unbuttoned trousers, his skin damp and—she could only imagine— sticky with his sweat. She raised her chin with a wince and looked into his eyes which stared back at her with a hardness that disheartened her. _

_The bright flicker she'd seen light up his warm brown eyes so many times when he'd called on her, the charmingly crooked grin that hung lazily off his kissable lips—all these she saw, but it was clear as she saw his gaze swivel away from her and towards the auburn-haired witch who stood before her that none of these were for or because of her anymore...if they'd ever been at all Helen saw the twinkle in Angelus' eyes flash, and she watched his smile widen as Brennan opened her mouth to speak, her head slumped a little as she realized that, no matter what happened that night or thereafter, she'd obviously missed something important. She wasn't quite sure how or why or when it had happened, but obviously something had happened between Angelus and Brennan—and somehow, a part of her disturbed mind that could still reason pieced together, the witch had become a threat to her. However, as soon as the thought entered her head, Helen quickly and finally dismissed it with a defiant sneer._

_Seeing Helen flinch again at her words, while ignoring her brief sneer of derision, Brennan again smiled as she said, "As I said before, I could lie and say that I'm not enjoying any of this, because I am. I'm enjoying myself tremendously. So much so that I can't even verbalize it to you, although I'll try." _

_Brennan glanced over her shoulder at Angelus, who still stood there, watching her intently, and as soon as her eyes met his, the crooked smirk on his mouth widened into a smile as the point of his pink tongue darted out from between his lips, quickly appearing and then vanishing again as he grinned back at her. Her eyes swiveled downward to his waist, and, letting her eyes fall a bit farther, she saw the clearest possible evidence of what he thought of the scene he'd been watching play out before him. As her eyes blinked up again, she caught his gaze and chuckled softly as they shared an unspoken exchange before he shrugged, his eyebrows wagging back at her before she turned back to the woman bound before her._

"_Yes, I'm going to enjoy this, Helen, my dear. Besides, why shouldn't I? I have no problem whatsoever admitting that I'm being just as much, if not more of a cold-hearted bitchy cunt as you usually are. Because taking such immense pleasure from culling the weak, stupid, shallow, aggravating user that is you from all existence. I'm fucking loving it."_

_At hearing the pleasure in her words, Angelus muttered behind her, "I just bet you are, lass." He took another step closer, his left hand brushing against the small of Brennan's back as a low growl rumbled in his throat. "And, just in case ya were wonderin', so am I." He leaned his head over her right shoulder and whispered, "An' if ya don't get this wee show o' yers movin' along a bit quicker, I just might have to take matters in me own hands, as we both know I've been apt to do for better o' worse from time to time, and do somethin' about this wee ache o' mine that's just about drivin' me outta my mind, mmm?" He pressed his lips against the back of her earlobe and nipped it gently. "I may just have t' yank that lovely robe off ya, throw ya 'gainst that wall there, and fuck your brains outta that pretty skull o' yours, and I donna care who the fuck's watchin'...aye?"_

_Helen glanced at Angelus as he whispered something to Brennan, howled in fury, and then gasped, "My dark prince, please, please don't hurt me like this. Don't leave me all alone out in the cold, my love. Don't be cruel. Not like this, not to me. You promised me—"_

_Shaking his head, Angelus snorted, "I promised you nothin', woman. Nothin'. And you're a bleedin' fool if you think I ever said anythin' o' the sort, aye? I never said nothin' like that."_

"_You love me," Helen insisted. "You fucking love me, Angelus, I know it."_

_Shrugging his shoulders casually as he shook his head with a snort, Angelus said, "Think that if it brings you comfort. But it ain't true, and ya fuckin' know it. I fucked you, but that's all."_

_This time it was Brennan who shook her head as she interrupted, "The more crazy the delusion, the more painful it is when it finally cracks, hmmm, Helen, my dear?" She then pointed at the vampire as she said, "You crazy delusional obsession that you've built up in your mind about this grand, dark romance that you had with Angelus never existed, Helen. It was never real. It was only real and only existed in your warped and twisted mind."_

"_No," Helen insisted. "It wasn't—it was real. It is real. My dark prince...he loves me. I know he does no matter how you've bewitched him now to think differently."_

_Brennan cocked her head to the side and stared skeptically at the vampire woman sitting bound before her. A smile broke across her face as she watched Helen struggle to open her eyes, their lids streaked with reddish-purple bruises and nearly swollen shut. Helen's lips parted and a faint sigh passed between them as she looked up expectantly at Angelus, who stared back at her over Brennan's silk-robed shoulder with dark, flinty eyes that brokered no sympathy. Her own dark eyes—or as much of them as could be seen the way they were swollen from the repeated beatings she'd taken at Brennan's hands—looked at him with a watery fondness, and she pursed her cracked, puffy lips together as if trying to blow him a kiss through the air, the sight of which made the old witch throw her head back in laughter._

"_It's not like you weren't warned this would end badly for you if you kept behaving as you did," Brennan said, her voice low and velvety as she spoke in an almost wistful way. "You were told that you'd come to this end if you kept pressing, kept pissing off the wrong people. You crossed the wrong person, Helen my dear, when you ignored those very wise warnings. Because I'm not the type of person you should fuck with, ever."_

_Clearly unimpressed, Helen snorted at Brennan. "Oh, please," she spat. "You think you own him. You always have. Well, I've got news for you, you stupid bitch. I knew Angelus long before you ever did. I've known him longer, and I'm more important to him. You're just doing this because you have no respect for the fact that __he's__ with __me_. _You can't handle it. You've never been able to handle it. __He__ loves __me__, and—"_

"_First of all," Brennan snapped, her anger creeping into her voice again as she cut off what she knew would be Helen's latest rant if she didn't interrupt her. "You're more than fucking crazy or delusional if you think Angelus ever loved you." _

_Brennan's eyes flashed to meet the male vampire's as she spoke. Angelus raised his chin as his eyes widened, his mouth opening slightly and then closing again as each of them stared back at the other, trying to read the other one's expression. His jaw jutted forward and his gaze narrowed again, holding firm to hers for a couple of more seconds before a quiet laugh tittered in his throat. He winked back at her with a flicker of what she could only guess was amused respect, then indicated with a quick, slight upward jerk of his chin for her to continue. _

"_He loves me," Helen insisted, her voice raspy with mounting frustration. "I know it. My dark prince loves—"_

"—_no one but himself," Brennan said with an exaggerated roll of her eyes. "Jesus Christ, Helen. Try to grow a few neurons that you can put to some use, however limited, just for a minute before you go back to blathering your inane drivel that makes me want to vomit every time I hear it for even just a few seconds." She punctuated her sentence with a small gag. "The only thing that Angelus loves is himself...and fucking and killing and causing as much resultant chaos as possible...those last three not being in any particular order of predetermined preference."_

_Angelus coughed and straightened his back as he palmed Brennan's shoulder with his big hand. "No, no, no," he said with a snicker. "I can definitely say that I like fuckin' best. Fuckin' first, then makin' trouble, and killin' least o' the three. Not 'cause I donna love killin' an' seein' the way someone looks when they know they're drawin' their last breath, but 'cause makin' trouble an' fomentin' anarchy is so much more damn fun. It's always different every time, while killin'—well, there's only so many different ways to kill, ya know, and it kinda gets a wee bit borin' after a while. But making a rumble and settin' everything all ablaze so everybody's runnin' around bumpin' into walls and screamin' and carryin' on—aye, well, that's fun as hell. Not as much fun as fuckin' though, 'cause there ain't nothin' better than that, and ain't nobody as good at fuckin' as I am, as the both of you know well, but—" _

_Glancning back at Angelus, Brennan couldn't help but smile as she said, "See? You really don't know him at all. He's a simple enough creature, really, if so completely full of himself it's laughable at times. But, in any case, not to run off on a tangent, like I said, Helen, my dear, you were warned. But, you didn't listen. And, no, to address your earlier statement, I'm not going to take an almost giddy pride in staking you shortly because this is about me being jealous of whatever you think it was that you and Angelus had when he was doing nothing more than using your slimy old pussy as a convenient hole he could stick his cock into as the opportunities presented themselves from time to time. This is about what you were warned about when they all told you not to cross me, not to fuck with me."_

"_Oh, please, Brennan," Helen laughed spitefully. "You've always been a legend in your own mind."_

"_Darla told you," Brennan continued. "On more than one occasion, I know, she counseled you not to fuck with me. Even poor mad Drusilla told you not to fuck with me. That you'd end up the worse for it because I'm a very, very dangerous woman, Helen. And, I think your current situation proves that I'm not someone to be trifled with, let alone crossed. But, stupid crazy fucking bitch that you are, you've done that, haven't you? You've done that on more than one occasion, and added injury to insult in the process."_

_In the course of her rant, Brennan had taken a step forward, leaving Angelus standing there with his hand in midair before he took a step back, giving her space and shoving his hands in his trouser pockets as he watched her. Brennan walked around Helen's chair, circling her like a hungry lioness stalking her doomed prey, her back straight and a dark, predatory glimmer in her blue eyes. She propped her hands on her hips and rolled her shoulders back as she smirked at her handiwork bound in the chair—her dark hair matted with blood as she hunched over, almost every inch of her olive skin marred by a bruise, blister, abrasion, or laceration of some kind. The floor around the chair was dotted with specks of dried blood that Brennan took care not to step on with her slippered feet as she walked her way in a circle around the muttering vampire woman._

"_So, my dear Helen, I'm going to do what I should've done a long time ago. You chose the wrong fucking witch to mess with and now you're going to pay for it."_

_With a curt laugh, Brennan paused for a moment, then turned on her heel and walked over to the dresser along the wall of her bedroom, across from her vanity. She stopped and picked up a gnarled length of dark brown wood—so dark it was nearly black—and held it admiringly, running her fingers along its bumpy yet smooth, knotted surface as she turned it over in her hands. _

_Helen turned her head with a grunt and, after a moment, realized what she was seeing and sucked in a sharp gasp between her teeth._

"_What are you doing?" she groaned, her arms straining against their bindings._

_Brennan turned around and laughed as she brandished the blackthorn stake with a wicked smile. "Now, I know this is hard for you, Helen, but try to stay with us, hmmm, particularly since I that you think that you already know what's going on here, don't you? I'm going to kill you," she said simply before she slapped the bound woman in the mouth with the wide end of the stake._

_The blow opened up Helen's puffy open lip which began to bleed. After a moment, she recovered enough to speak again._

"_So that's it then? We've finally reached the end, Brennan? Have you finally tired of me?" Helen asked, her words falling sloppily from her bloodied lips. "Or now that Angelus is here, is it really that you're suddenly jealous because he's admitted he's been fucking me off and on for the last few years when you've hardly seen a wink of him?" She leaned her head back—one of the only parts of her body she could actually move considering the way Brennan had bound her to the heavy oak chair—and snorted. "No," she said with a sneer. "You're not pissed that I've been fucking your little vampire boy here, but rather that I've been fucking that blue-eyed rogue of a father of yours."**  
**_

_Angelus cocked his head in surprise and turned to Brennan, then shook his head, glanced at Helen and back to Brennan again._

"_Wait, what?" he coughed, quite sure he hadn't heard what he thought he did. He'd been a bit distracted with his own lewd thoughts as he was half-heartedly listening to the two women's banter. Surely he'd misheard the exchange, he thought. _

_However, Helen's next words clarified any confusion on his part as she spat at Brennan._

_"Granted," Helen continued, "he wasn't as well-equipped as Angelus here, but he was more than serviceable, especially since he was very good with his tongue when he wanted to be and for a human, he had fairly adequate stamina and skills of endurance. He was always good for a couple of very nice turns each night. And, as might be expected for a rogue like him, he was always creative. Very creative, actually. You should be proud of your sire in that, Brennan. He never made me come the exact same way twice."_

"_How dare you, you cheeky, stupid, insipid, crazy little fucking bitch!" Brennan said. "Do you think I want to hear anything that you have to say about anyone, let alone me or my family?" She reared her hand back and, with a loud grunt, slugged the vampire woman in the stomach with every ounce of strength she could summon in that moment. "Just in case you didn't know the answer to that question, the answer's no, you stupid, worthless twat."_

_"Huh?" Angelus shook his head and blinked, looking down at his bare feet and scratching his belly distractedly, thenturned back to the bound vampire. "Wait. What are you talkin' about, woman?" _

"_Oh, this is rich," Brennan laughed as she drew her clenched fist back from where Helen had doubled over in pain at the sharp jab to the gut the witch had slammed into her as hard as she could. Not giving Helen the satisfaction of seeing her rub her now-sore knuckles, instead she turned to Angelus. She arched an eyebrow and looked at him, shaking her head as she saw him fidget, wiggling his bare toes against the well-burnished, centuries-old hardwood floor of her bedroom as he ran his hand through his sweat-damp, tangled, shoulder-length hair, scratching the nape of his neck as he looked up at her with a sheepish expression she'd only seen him use a couple of times in the twenty years she'd known him. His dark eyebrows flew up as corners of his mouth curved into a faint grin and his forehead creased deeply with uncertainty. Brennan rolled her eyes at his apparent display of utter cluelessness. "Please tell me that you're joking, Angelus."_

"_No, lass," he said with a bit of a grumble. "I'm not. I have no fuckin' clue what either of you two banshees are wailin' about."_

_Studying him for a minute, Brennan asked, "You honestly have no idea?" _

"_No," he growled again, suddenly feeling annoyed that he'd missed something important. "I don't know what the fuck is goin' on. Now you gonna tell me or not?" He raised his eyebrows expectantly as he held his lips in a petulant pout. "Either of you?"_

_Nodding at Helen, Brennan smirked. "Surely, you know," she said in low, dark voice. "Surely you know she's been fucking another man on a regular basis behind your back this last couple of years."_

_Angelus laughed dismissively. "No, she hasn't," he snickered. "Now, that—that I'd know. She's always only had eyes for me—which o' course is perfectly understandable, me bein' such a fine specimen of a man and all and being such a man, I have very, very special skills that she's always loved...let alone the, heh, impressively-sized tools I have to put those skills to use—an' I know by the way it felt when I was fuckin' her that she was only fuckin' me. 'Cause when a woman is bein' fucked by me, even if it's only every now an' again, she ha'n't no need for another man, no way. She's just puttin' on..."_

_Hearing Angelus' own bombastic description of himself made Brennan snicker as she shook her head at him. "Well, either you're not the specimen of world-renown fucking that you think you are or she has you and your sizeable ego duped," Brennan said. "And since I can vouch for the highly satisfactory quality of your skills in bed, I'm inclined to go with the latter."_

"_No fuckin' way she's been fuckin' another man," Angelus said. "Aye, there's no fuckin' way. She wanted me like a drunk wants whiskey—every fuckin' minute of every fuckin' day. She couldna do without me." He looked at Helen's battered face and laughed. "She was waxin' more than a bit obsessive, to be honest with ya, but it was kinda hot and intoxicatin' in a strange sort o' way, bein' the moon in some nutter's sky like that, and, well, to be honest, she wasn't a horrendously bad lay—not as tight as you, lass, but still wet and warm in a nice kind o' way and that dark Italian skin o' hers did pink up real nice when I'd get her off." He made a murmuring sound as he blinked away a private memory, then said, "But now that I got Dru, and I can have her when I need to dip my wick in a bit o' wacky, nutters ink, I sure donna need this wench anymore. Dru's easier to satisfy and a lot less fuckin' trouble, all and all. 'Twas about ready to get rid o' her, ya know, so it seems that ya did me a wee favor, you sweet lass..."_

_Angelus turned and looked at the Italian vampire for a moment, then grunted. "But, all that aside, there's still no way she was fuckin' another man. No damn way in all the hells, 'cause I'd know and I'm tellin' ya, she wad'nt doin' nobody else..."_

"_Oh, yes," Brennan said, stepping back again from the bound woman as blood dripped from a newly-reopened cut on Helen's lip onto the hard seat of the chair, forming a tiny red puddle between her sprawled legs. "You've been having someone else's sloppy seconds, sweetness. A human man's sloppy seconds."_

_His jaw hardened and his dark brows furrowed hard over his flickering brown eyes. "You're such a fuckin' liar, lass," he snickered. "You lie. Which, by the way, while I was maybe not as forthcomin' as I could've been before, but now you're out 'n' out lyin' 'bout this nonsense now, so we're even, s'far as I'm concerned. You and your pretty little lies, lass —" He paused with a shake of his head as he chuckled, more to himself than for any other reason before he added with a snicker, "You lie so sweetly, Brennan, it's almost endearin'..."_

"_Oh, really?" Brennan laughed derisively. "And, why would I lie, Angelus? What could I possibly gain from telling you something that that wasn't true since we both know if I wanted to tease you or torment you, I'd have much more...creative and effective ways to do it."_

"_Aye," he said sardonically. "Aye, 'tis true—you know how to drive me nigh as fuckin' mad as this bitch here, huh? For fuck's sake, lass. I know that better 'an anybody. So, right then. Tell me. Who is this other man that this two-pence baggage has been fuckin' behind my back?"_

"_Angelus," Helen moaned pleadingly. "My love, my dark prince—please don't do this. You know I love you, my handsome prince. I made a mistake. I'm sorry. I don't know what I was thinking. I don't know what happened...I-I...I must've gotten bewitched somehow by that devilish rogue of a man. A love potion, perhaps. He must have slipped it into my wine one night. His powers are great, and...even the way I am...the way we are...I wasn't immune to it, Angelus, and I'm so sorry, my love. Please forgive me, my dark prince, my one and only who will walk through the bonds of eternity with me by his side..." She saw the look in his eyes, which grew harder and more unforgiving as they darkened to almost black, their depths illuminated only by the way the lamplight glimmered against his smoldering umber irises. Helen whimpered and swallowed weakly, her strength fading from the abuse but more so by how long her demonic flesh had been starved of nourishing blood. "Please help," she cried. "Angelus, please...help me...I don't...I-I...please?"_

_Ignoring her, Brennan snorted and arched a sardonic eyebrow as she surveyed how anger had made rigid the chiseled features of her vampire lover's face._

"_Who?" he asked through clenched teeth._

"_My father," she said flatly. _

_The words hung in the air between them, heavy and thick, as Angelus blinked, his mouth gaping open as he processed the significance of what he'd heard. He shook his head, bringing his broken hand up to rub his thumb along the side of his stubbled jaw, grunting as soon as he realized he'd done it._

"_Your father?" he asked, his brow deeply creased as he tried to make sense of it all. "Your father's been fuckin' her?" He shook his head again, glanced over at the murmuring, bleeding woman in the chair before him, then looked at his witch lover. "No fuckin' way. I donna believe it. No how, no fuckin' way."_

_Watching Angelus for a long moment, Brennan felt another flash of anger when a part of her thought that perhaps he was in denial because of his attachment to Helen. Then, when she continued to see his confusion color his cruelly handsome face, she realized that even Angelus wasn't that good an actor and that his state of surprise had to be genuine in and of itself. Nodding at him, she finally spoke once more. "You can believe what you want, but it's true," Brennan told him. "When she wasn't at Claridge's," she said, referring to the luxury hotel in the Mayfair district of central London. "She was spending her nights warming my father's bed at whatever little love-nest they'd taken to shacking up in on the East End, and that's been the case for some time now."_

_Angelus shifted his jaw from side to side as he considered the revelation. At last, he jerked his jaw at Brennan and asked for confirmation one last time. "Aye?" he grunted._

_Nodding again, Brennan answered, "Yes."_

_Shaking his head in disbelief, Angelus turned to Helen. "You dirty little sluttish liar," he sneered, narrowing his eyes and glaring at the bloodied, beaten woman in the chair. "You fuckin' liar." He snickered darkly as his eyebrows hung low and hard over his smoldering eyes. Helen struggled to meet his gaze, her dark eyes scarcely visible between her swollen lids as she cocked her head to the side and tried to smile._

"_Angelus, my sweet, dark prince," she whispered. "It wasn't the way she makes it sound, I swear. I was charmed by that wicked devil of a father of hers. Him and his magics made me do things that I..." She watched his eyes, hoping for a flicker of sympathy or forgiveness, but saw nothing in their dark, angry depths. "Please, my love," she begged. "It wasn't like that. I'm telling you the truth. I swear—" _

_After he'd cut Helen off with a disgusted hiss, he looked away from her in disgust and focused his eyes on the room's other occupant. "She said I was the only one," he said, forcing himself to bark out a laugh as he turned to Brennan,still smarting in disgust as he was over having been deceived and, worse, being so foolish as to not realize it. "O'er and o'er again, she did. That I was the only one, the only one she ever needed or wanted. She said I'd saved her, given her a purpose in life when no one else ever had, ever could. But what a clever little baggage she was because it turns out she was fuckin' full of it since it seems she lied, an' wanted to put out for a mere man. A warlock, even. Warlocks are even worse than witches—creepy and sneaky the way they use all their nasty magic tricks, and they don't even have a nice pair of tits to make it all worth puttin' up with. A fuckin' warlock? Holy fuckin' hell." His jaw tightened as he gritted his teeth before he cursed again, "Bollocks on all of it."_

_He looked at Brennan again and smirked at the glimmer in her angry gaze, the sight of which fanned the flames of the desire that smoldered low in his belly._

_Shrugging her shoulders, Brennan said, "Well, it's not like I haven't been trying to tell you that for the better part of the last half hour, Angelus." Shaking her head, she then added as she narrowed her eyes at him, "And, setting aside that little insinuation you just made about my tits being the only thing to make up for me being a witch—which didn't get past me as they all never do, by the by, sweetness—next time, perhaps you'd be wise to try something different and actually listen to me for once, hmmm?"_

"_So, wait," he said, a faint measure of caution lining the edge of his voice as he saw a flash of bright azure flicker in Brennan's pale eyes. "So why are you standin' there so calm, lass?" he asked her. "I seen that kind o' look before, on the face o' the hangman who tried to hang me that one time in Tynemouth. What, are you now thinkin' you're the judge, jury, and executioner in this wee play trial o' yours? Brennan's law. A wee bit rich, isn't it? So much for being all cool, calm an' collected the way ya usually are, huh?"_

"_I am not angry," she snapped, the sharp tone of her response betraying her. "The plain fact of the matter is that I know that cosmic justice, a lovely little thing I like to call karma, is finally coming home to roost and will deliver this nasty little slut's comeuppance. I'm not being unilateral in any way, if that's what you're suggesting in your typical completely inarticulate manner, Angelus. I'm just saving the world the nauseating trouble of having to wait any longer for the inevitable." _

"_Right," Angelus sneered at her in obvious disbelief. "So you're just doin' a wee public service then." He laughed, staring at her hard as he watched her eyes closely. "But, see, I donna believe a word of it. You're pissed off, lass. Real fuckin' pissed off, though I'm not entirely sure I know exactly why. Tell me—which pissed you off more, lass: the fact that she was fuckin' me, or fuckin' your father?"_

"_Neither, actually," she said. "It was the fact that she was fucking my father, snuggling up to him and making him think she actually gave a fuck about him, all the while plotting to rip him off." She paused. "And in the process, ripping me off. She used my father, defrauded him, stole his money, stole my money, and then, on top of it all, had the audacity to fuck you behind my father's back."_

"_Ripped you off?" he asked, another look of unexpected confusion washing across his face. "What do you mean?"_

"_My father is a Member of Lloyd's," the witch explained. "As am I. And this baggage had an insurance broker friend of hers—who she was probably fucking, too, come to think of it—approach us to underwrite a group of shipments of aged, dried Connecticut pipe tobacco from Bridgeport to London. My father took a forty percent quota share in the risk, and I signed on for ten percent. Hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of cargo on these vessels. We agreed to take the risk of loss or damage on those shipments, in exchange for a profitable premium."_

_Angelus quirked an eyebrow, struggling to follow her explanation. "Aye, so?" he finally sputtered, hoping that, for once, Brennan would take pity on him and clarify the meaning of what she'd just told him._

"_So," she continued. "It just so happens that I have a friend—"_

_Unable to help himself, Angelus cut her off as he said, "Aye, lass, we know you have lots and lots of friends."_

_Pursing her lips, Brennan said, "As do you, Angelus, although at least mine are more talented than the likes of Helen, including this particular friend who's a marine surveyor by trade. He can hold his breath for three and a half minutes when he has to check the condition of a vessel's keel, which, for a human, I'm sure you'll admit is quite a talent." She lifted her piercing blue gaze to his to challenge him to respond to he point._

_"Still has nothin' on me," Angelus snorted cockily. "I can go down on you all damn night and never come up for air, though I'd have worn ya out lass an' have ya beggin' for the sweet mercy o' my cock lest ya pass out from want of it."_

_Rolling her eyes at him again, Brennan ignored his comment as she continued as if the vampire hadn't said a word. "As I was saying, anyway, my friend has a friend who has another friend—"_

_"What kind o' 'friend' are we talkin' about here, exactly, lass?" he asked. "Because I don't think it's just me, but ya seem to have a lot of these 'friends'. And an unusual number of sailor-boy friends." He paused for a beat before he narrowed his dark black eyes at her as she shook his head slightly, "All that time at sea, stuck on some kind o' tin can with a bunch of other sexually-frustrated bum boys. They get kind o' lonely for a lady's affections, aye?"_

_Brennan ignored his taunt. "And this friend of a friend knows some men who run ships out of Bridgeport."_

"_Aye, and?" Angelus prompted her again, his eyes glazing over slightly at her long-winded explanation._

"_And," Brennan answered, her mouth taking on a firm line as she continued. "When one of those vessels failed to show up at the East India Docks when they were supposed a couple of months back, I found out through—well, let's just say some unofficial channels, as it were—that this stupid whore had cut a deal with the captain of the missing vessel and the shipper of the goods to split the proceeds of the insurance paid after the cargo was lost when the vessel was scuttled off the southeastern coast of Iceland. So, my-dear-if-quite-simple-at-times-Angelus, that means, in summation, that this crazy twat conspired to commit barratry for the express purpose of defrauding the underwriters—my father, myself, and the other Names that signed on to insure the shipment."_

_Angelus blinked and huffed an awkward laugh. "She ripped you off?" he asked, his lips curled back in stunned surprise . "And your da?" He turned to Helen, shot her a dark look, then shook his head and turned back to Brennan still seemingly unconvinced. "Really?"_

"_Fucking right she did," she confirmed with a sneer in Helen's direction. "To the tune of tens of thousands of pounds sterling, the dumb fucking cunt."_

_A grimace came over Brennan's face as she recalled the evening she'd stood on her father's doorstep, waiting for him to answer the door. She'd just been informed of the insurance fraud by her friend, John Travers, and she was furious. The door had swung open, and she'd seen her father standing there, hastily buttoning up his shirt, with a surprised look on his face. Just as Brennan looked up to greet him, she saw a familiar dark-haired, dark-eyed, olive-skinned female form in the doorway of his bedroom, clad only in one of his white button-down shirts, calling out to ask who it was at the door._

_"You know I hate losing money on account of someone else's dishonest dealings," she said gravely, her gaze holding Angelus' for several seconds as they each recalled the very different way she'd demanded he repay his much-smaller debt that night twenty years earlier after she lost a small sum betting against him in a boxing match. "I absolutely despise a lying thief, far worse than a liar or thief alone, especially when said lying thief isn't near as smart or impressive a person as she thinks she is."_

_"Oh, for fuck's sake," Angelus muttered to neither one in particular as he tried to make sense of the strange and sordid revelation—and where it left him vis-a-vis Brennan._

_Reaching up with his good hand to tuck a loose strand of hair behind his ear, he opened his mouth and was about to say something else when Helen raised her head again, her eyes by now completely swollen shut from the beating Brennan had given her in the minutes before Angelus arrived, and pleaded to him once more._

"_Help me, my lover," she whispered. "My dark prince. Please..."_

"_You've got to be fuckin' kiddin' me," Angelus grumbled to himself. "She's still at it?" he asked Brennan with a roll of his eyes. "After everything you've done, and we've just talked about, she's still—? For fuck's sake."_

_Nodding with a sigh, Brennan said, "Unfortunately so. She has the memory span of a beta fish apparently, lasting about seven seconds on most things but for her delusional obsession with you."_

"_You just can't stand it," Helen suddenly spat at Brennan. "You never have...not since from the first moment when I staked my claim to Angelus and dared any and all to know that he was mine...mine and mine alone. You knew that and that's why you've really done this, isn't it? You knew that he'd chose me over you if I made him—"_

_Anger again flashed in Brennan's eyes. Her nostrils flared as, for some reason that Angelus couldn't discern, the witch stayed her hand against the bound vampire. He watched her intently, unsure why she continued to toy with Helen when it was as plain as day that she intended to kill her. For a moment, he wondered whether she was delaying for the sake of her own amusement—the thought of which sent a tingle through his limbs to see her enjoy delivering pain to another—or as a way of sending a message of some kind to him—that she was marking him as her territory, letting him know in the moments before she destroyed her rival what she would do to him if he ever betrayed her. He wasn't sure, but as the scene played out before him, he knew one thing: his desire for her grew more intense with each passing second. _

"_I've said it before, but I'll say it again, Helen dear," she said, the hard edge of her voice belying her politeness. "Shut your fucking mouth, bitch," Brennan snapped. "I would cut your lying tongue out of your nasty, insolent little mouth if I didn't know it would grow right back by dusk tomorrow."_

"_He's always liked my tongue best," the battered woman muttered under her breath, a crooked grin breaking across her puffy, bloodied lips as she heard the tightness in Brennan's voice. Her eyes were swollen almost completely shut, so she couldn't make out the features of the witch's face, but she took a certain pleasure in imagining the way the other woman clenched her jaw, her teeth nearly gritted as she spat her words. A wave of nausea passed through her as she realized the one sound she couldn't hear—her lover's voice, notably absent as she he stood there silently while the two rivals railed at each other. "To say nothing of my other parts. Always me, Brennan. Just me. Never you. Just me. I win. I always win."_

"_Like fuck you do," Brennan hissed, suddenly whatever had stayed her hand no longer holding her inactive as she brought her arm back and slapped Helen across the face as hard as she could "You stupid, insipid bitch. You think he gives a fuck about you? Huh? Then why's he just standing here like a scarecrow, useless and mute, as opposed to rushing in a like a knight on a white horse to save your slutty little cunt?" _

"_Wait," Angelus interjected, raking the fingers of his unbroken hand through his shoulder-length hair as his darkened eyes darted from one woman to the other. "Wait," he said again, turning to Helen. "Stop, woman. You're totally mad, you know, if you think I chose you over her, or that I was ever yours. You forgot the rules o' the game, didn't ya? You told me so yourself, back when you and I first started carryin' on together, mmm? How Darla didn't own me, an' how I was my own man. How'd you say it? 'No ownership, no possession, Angelus.' You told me that we could have anybody we wanted, but whoever you have, they're never really yours. Guess what's good for the goose ain't good enough for the gander, after all, aye? Fuckin' bollocks, all of your pithy-ass sayin's. You don't own me, Helen. You never did. An' I never chose you over anyone. I never chose you at all. I just fucked you. Full stop."_

_A couple of seconds of silence passed as Brennan stared at him in an unusual expression of surprise, then Angelus grunted and began to speak again. _

"_Fact is, you're both fuckin' killin' me here," he said. "You—" He smirked at Helen with a quick shake of his head. "Because ya don't know fuck all about me, if ya think I like your tongue all that much. That's why I only ever let ya suck my cock when I was fuckin' tired of screwin' your sorry, saggin' pussy or your nasty ass and was in a bit of a hurry to be goin' an' needed to get off so I could go about the rest o' me night. But ya were never all that good at suckin' cock—I mean, for fuck's sake, I've been sucked off by fourteen-year old virgins at a convent who were better at gettin' on their knees and suckin' dick than you are, so you're one crazy fuckin' bitch if you think for one fuckin' second that you're anythin' to write fuckin' home about in bed, alright?" _

_He rolled his eyes, then turned to Brennan._

"_And you?" Angelus took a couple of steps towards his witch lover, coming close enough that he stood nearly nose-to-nose with her and could feel her breath on his stubbled upper lip. "You drive me almost as fuckin' crazy as this worthless piece of baggage, the way you tease me. Fuckin' gettin' me all cranked to hell an' gone, reachin' into me trousers and haulin' me out, holdin' me in your hot little hand and damn near wankin' me to fuckin' oblivion before ya stop. You been drivin' me fuckin' insane since the fuckin' night I met ya, down in Covent Garden, and ya know what? Huh? The more I fuckin' have of ya, the more I fuckin' want. You wanted some space, aye? Fine. So I gave ya some, but when all's said 'n' done, lass? I can't fuckin' stand it if I canna have ya. I used t' think I could go a couple o' months without that, without feeling that hot, tight snatch o' yours, but no—that wad'n't enough. So then I figured a couple o' times a month, but no—that wad'n't enough, neither. So then, I'm sittin' there in the clink of all fuckin' clinks, the fuckin' Tower o' fuckin' London, and I realize it—that ya fuckin' turned me nuttier than Dru, ya have, and so as soon as I got me outta there, I came over here. 'Cause ya fuckin' drive me outta my fuckin' mind, wanting to fuck ya all night an' all fuckin' day." He paused for a moment, then added, "An' I think that's the way ya fuckin' want it, aye? Me, outta my fuckin' mind, wrapped around your wee little finger so all I can think about is how fuckin' bad I want ya?" _

_His rant finished and his sudden burst of energy expended, Angelus watched Brennan intently, his eyes widening instinctively as he saw her fingers curl tightly around the wooden stake._

_Helen made a tittering sound, then raised her head to speak, her eyes swollen little slits as she stared blindly in their general direction. _

"_If you were such a great fuck," she sneered, "then why did he come to me? Not just tonight, although that will serve as as good an example as any. Why did he, hmmm? And why did he just say what he did, Helen dear?" She paused, and when Helen said nothing as a pained look crossed her battered face, Brennan actually smiled. "Ahh, at last, is comprehension finally dawning, Helen dear? At last, do you finally get it, why he comes to me again and again and again, hmmmmm? Do you finally realize it? You're nothing to him. Nothing." _

_Helen arched her head back and grimaced before her eyes narrowed at Brennan. "If you were so damn wonderful," she said, "then why did he darken my door even just one time after you came into his life? If you were everything he wanted, why did he come around—and keep coming around, coming back to me—during these last twenty years?" She saw Brennan flinch slightly at her words and smiled at the reaction she'd elicited from the witch. Pressing her advantage, Helen smirked, "We both know the answer, Brennan. It was because you were never enough, you were never good enough. You never deserved him. You were just a sideshow amusement, a way for him to waste some time in the same way he did the numerous brothels he tramped throughout the city of London. You were no different from a Southwark strumpet to him. A good fuck, nothing more. And, that my dear, is why he always came back to me. Not to you. To me. Do what you want to me, but it doesn't change the truth, Brennan."_

_Seemingly exhausted by her outburst, her head dropped to her chest and groaned softly as she tried in vain to shift the position of her legs. Gripping the stake tightly in her right hand, Brennan stepped forward. She stood in front of Helen and grabbed the bound woman's hair, yanking her head up as she glared. _

"_There's only one woman in his life," she said to Helen. "Only one woman that he would do what he's willing to do for me: to deprive himself of sex—"_

"_I don't believe it," the bound woman snorted. "A man like Angelus, with his huge appetites, would never willingly deprive himself of sex for anyone. That's ludicrous."_

_Angelus cleared his throat to gain the attention of the arguing rivals before Brennan could respond._

"_Aye," he said, tilting his head back as he stared down at Helen through narrowed eyes. "For her, and for her alone, though it fuckin' killed me to do it, aye—I'd go without. And have. If I have to sleep ten nights alone to rid my skin of the stink of other women for the chance to spend one night in her bed..." His voice trailed off as he turned and looked at Brennan, holding her hard, glistening gaze for several long seconds. "Then I'll sleep alone. That's the price I've paid, and will gladly pay again. And again. And again." _

_It was a rare moment, the room eerily among the three of them as Angelus himself fell silent and watched Brennan stand there, the blackthorn stake in her hands as the bound vampire woman sighed and began to whimper._

"_That's right," Brennan said after a few seconds, grinning in satisfaction. "I am the one—the one who he'd wait for just because he's willing to do anything to have me. There's no one else for whom he'd sacrifice like that. And, I think now, finally, at the end, Helen dear, I think you've finally gotten a glimmer of enlightenment if you understand that that one isn't you. It's me." She jerked Helen's hair. "Get it? I'm the only one. I am, I was, and always will be—the only one. He chose me—just me. Understand?"_

_Brennan punctuated her statement with a sharp action as she pulled Helen's hair back hard so her neck arched and her naked chest was bared, reared her arm back, and plunged the blackthorn stake hard into Helen's chest. The female vampire shrieked once, tilted her head at Angelus, and barely had enough time to cry out his name one final time before Helen's form suddenly transformed into a pillar of gray, ash-like dust before it exploded into a cloud of particulate, and the loosely-formed remnants of her demonic bones collapsed into dust. All told, it took only a second, and then she was gone._

_For her part, Brennan stood there for a moment, smirking at the thin layer of dust on the seat of the dark walnut chair as she surveyed her handiwork with untold glee before she swiveled her head around and shot a hard stare into Angelus' dark eyes. He stared back at her, a flicker in his dark brown eyes as he swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He felt something he'd never felt before, a curious warmth in his belly that lasted for but a second, then quickly faded as he saw her eyes flash brightly as her cheek rose in crooked smile. He winced as he felt the dull, round ache that had been pulsing in his groin suddenly grow tighter and more painful as the latent aggression seemed to roll off of her in waves, and the spicy smell of her anger swirled in his nostrils along with the musky scent of her arousal._

"_I am the only one, Angelus," she said to him, almost daring him to contradict her, as statement to him echoed the last words she'd just said to his erstwhile vampire lover. But, so as to leave no doubt whatsoever in his mind as to her point, she added challengingly, "And I always will be."_

_Angelus blinked, then stepped towards her, bringing his hands up and cupping her face between his palms, ignoring the pain he felt in his broken hand as he covered her mouth with his and teased her mouth open with a swipe of his tongue. Brennan quickly seized control of the kiss and thrust her tongue into his mouth, grasping at his lips as her tongue invaded his mouth, tasting in his kiss the metallic tang of the dinner she guessed he'd stopped for on the way. Angelus moaned into her mouth as their tongues dueled, and he jerked his hip against her so she would know exactly how he felt after seeing her destroy another woman who dared challenge her for his affections._

_Brennan pushed his hands away from her face, hooking her thumbs under his suspenders as she slid them off his naked shoulders._

"_No matter who you meet," she said in a husky, breathy voice as she pushed him towards her bed. "No matter whose bed you slither into, no matter what, there will never, ever be anyone like me. No one who does to you what I do, what I can do, what I do do to you. It will always only be me. Just me, hmmm?"_

"_Always," he agreed, growling in the seconds before her mouth once more crushed against his in a forceful kiss that left no doubt that she wanted him as much as he wanted her. "Just you, lass," he murmured into their kiss. "Just you, always."_

_Their mouths grasped at one another with aggression and hunger, and Brennan found herself for a moment nearly lost in the sensation of kissing him. But, when she heard the growl sound deep in his throat and felt the fingers of his uninjured hand curl around her hip and squeeze, she growled back and pushed him onto the bed. He sat up, propping himself up with his good hand as a crooked, lascivious grin hung from his lips, and watched her lean over and reach for the waistband of his trousers and union shorts, which still gaped open from her earlier ministrations._

"_Only me," she said. "No matter where you go or who you fuck, you'll never find anyone who can do to you what I do." She tugged his trousers and underwear off his hips and slid them down his thighs, a lewd half-grin cracking her face as his hard, swollen cock bounced free. "I promise you that," she added. "Never."_

_Letting the pleasure he felt from the anticipation of what she was about to do to him wash over him, Angelus took a minute before he finally responded. "So what are ya gonna do to me, then, lass?" Angelus asked, watching with darkening eyes as she pulled his trousers off and dumped them on the floor without so much as a backward glance. She then peeled his union shorts off and threw them to the side before she looked up at him and finally gave him an answer to her question. _

"_Whatever I want," she replied, signaling with a sharp upward jerk of her chin that he was to move from the foot of her bed. "Whatever the fuck I want, Angelus. And, you know what else, sweetness?"_

"_Hmmmm?" he growled as he watched her every moment through heavy-lidded eyes._

"_After all of this," she told him. "You're going to let me have you in whatever way I want."_

_Moving backwards on the bed, scooting more than crawling on account of his injured hand, his dark eyes observed her every move as she followed him, stalking him across the bed as the moved on her hands and knees. She licked her lips as she walked her hands along the side of his naked torso, leaning over him and dragging the silky skin of her belly over the tip of him, __laughing low as she heard him hiss at the sensation._

"_Jesu', lass," he cursed as she pressed her hips into his, thrusting into him and feeling his full, rigid length against her damp curls. "Ya tortured 'er, then killed 'er. And now you're tryin' to do the same to me, lass? Huh?"_

_Brennan narrowed her eyes and rolled her hips back, pressing firmly against him as she chuckled. "You're no good to me dead, sweetness," she grinned. She sat up on her haunches, gazing down at him, then raised herself up enough to fist his thick arousal and brush his swollen tip across the damp cleft between her legs. "No good at all," she repeated again as she lifted herself up a bit, lining him up just where she wanted him before impaling herself on him._

"_Oh, sweet fuck, lass," he cried out as her hot, slick folds suddenly swallowed him up to the hilt. "Ohh, Jesus fuckin' Christ, you're wet, lass. And so fuckin' tight...unnnnggth..."_

"_Ohhhhh," she sighed as she drew herself up, hissing as she felt him slide almost completely out of her, then thrust herself back over him with a loud, almost unfeminine grunt. "You're mine," she growled as she began to establish a rhythm, rocking her hips back and forth as she moved her body, slick with desire and tight with hungry, possessive want, over him. "You're mine, Angelus. Aren't you?" She rolled her hips, leaning hard into her hands as she felt him jerk his hips up to meet each of her strokes. "I'm the only one that makes you feel the way I do."_

"_Ohhh, fuck, lass," he sighed. He thrust his hips off the bed, sending himself as deep into her as he could, reaching up with his one good hand and curling the thick, long fingers of his strong, veiny hand around the curve of her hip. "Fuck, lass," he groaned, wincing as he felt himself bottom out inside of her, again and again._

"_Say it, Angelus," she growled, driving her hips into his with a particularly hard downstroke as she felt him peel her apart and fill her the way no other man, human or otherwise, ever had. "Admit it. Say it."_

"_What?" he gasped. "Oh, sweet holy fuckin' hell...nnnnggth, aye, damn..." His fingertips dug into the springy flesh of her hip as he felt her body, so hot and wet, fold tightly around him and drawing him in even deeper and more snugly with each of her driving strokes. "Oh, fuck, yes, lass...I donna know why you wanna fuckin' talk when...oh, fuck! It's so fuckin' amazin' the way you fuckin' feel..." He bucked up into her at the same moment she stroked over him. "Shussh, lass," he said. "Don't talk. Just fuck."_

"_Only me," Brennan prompted him. "Tell me. Say it."_

"_No―"_

"_Yes," she insisted, as she stilled their rhythm. "Otherwise we're done here. Now, say it."_

_Angelus squeezed his eyes shut and reached his fingers around to the small of her back, pulling her closer as he jerked up and into her as deeply and forcefully as he could. He felt himself lengthen and swell inside of her. "Ohhh, fuck..." He opened his eyes and saw her pale blue eyes flash bright, then darken again to the color of the evening twilight as her jaw hardened._

"_Say it," she hissed through gritted teeth, as she fucked him as hard as she could, impaling herself on him with brutal force with each rolling thrust of her hips. "Only me. I'm the only one." She slowed the pace of her movements. "Say it," she demanded again, before she resumed the rolling momentum of her fucking as a way to torture him into doing her bidding._

_Angelus felt his balls tighten and an almost unpleasant pricking at his skin as he saw the energy crackle in the narrow space between her sweaty skin and his. Each time she rocked her hips back and he felt himself withdrawn from her, then swallowed up again, he felt his entire world begin to spin, drawing into a tighter and tighter spiral as her body tightened around him in a way that made it seem his mind was being torn apart. Her felt her muscles clench around him and the pricking heat against his skin seemed to envelop him completely. _

"_Aye," he cried at last. "Oh, fuck! Aye, for fuck's sake. It's true."_

"_What?" she growled at him. "Say it specifically."_

"_Fine, you fuckin' bitch," he groaned half in pleasure, half in misery. "You're the only one, lass—the only one who makes me this way, who drives me as mad as you do. Only one, now and probably only one that ever will. You...just you."_

"_That's right," she sighed, slamming her hips into his one last time as she shattered, quivering around him, sucking him into her tight, slippery, silky folds one last time before he, too, broke, flooding her as a flash of bright blue lit up the space around them. He squeezed her fleshy hip and pulled her into him, holding her there as he pulsed his release into her. _

"_Oh, fuck, lass," he groaned. "You're the only fuckin' one, Brennan. The only bleedin' one that does this to me. Just...oh fuck."_

Booth blinked, rolling his shoulder as he tried to ignore the tingle of desire that surged up his spine, and he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, shaking his head as he struggled to make sense of the endless flood of sounds and images. The face of the woman he'd seen in these scenes was unmistakably familiar—a face he had seen almost every day for the last two and a half years—and the voice was without a doubt his own, though the words he spoke seemed strangely alien to him, and in some of the fragments, heavily laden with an Irish brogue the likes of which he hadn't heard since getting his haircut at the old barbershop in the Devil's Pocket neighborhood of South Philadelphia with a green, white and orange flag in the window emblazoned with the slogan _Tiocfaidh ár lá _("our day will come").

_What's happening to me? _he thought, his breath catching in his throat as his gut soured with a sickening feeling of rising panic. _Oh, God...help me._

* * *

-TBC-

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**A/N2:** Mmmmm, yes. Who doesn't love themselves some Angelus? He's just so...well, talk about sex on legs.

Admittedly, as sexy as that was, that memory was probably a bit freaky for poor old Booth, suddenly remembering himself saying and doing those things, never mind the shock of seeing Brennan like he'd never ever seen her before. Alas, his flashbacks aren't done quite yet. That one was long and complex enough that it needed its own very long, unbroken chapter. We—and our boy Angel-Booth—have a few more important flashbacks to endure before we can move back out of his head to see what happens next between him and Brennan.

In the meantime, we'd love to know what you thought of that little blast from the Victorian past. We'd love it if you left us a review... ::blinks prettily:: Thanks!


	4. Part IIIB: Echoes of the Past, Part 2

**Echoes True and False**

**By:** Lesera128 & dharmamonkey

**Rated: **M

**Disclaimer: **Here we posit our normal rigmarole. No, we don't own anything from _Bones _or _Angel... _or anything else. Yes, we're wreaking what havoc we can with these characters that we don't own to create an awesome story. But, since it's only for the purposes of creative enjoyment and amusing distraction, we think we're okay. Are there any other questions? No? ::blinks:: Good. Then moving on―

**A/N: **Good news: here is the next mammoth part of this story (the longest yet in the 9-story arc of which this entry is a part. We know we keep saying that, but it's true! Bad news: here is the next mammoth part of this story. Not like that is anything new with us, but it's long, so enjoy but don't expect to do it in an hour...of course, we think that's like a dharmasera creed anyway, so...without further adieu...

**UNF Alert: **We've said it before, but we'll say it again. If you aren't supposed to be reading this stuff (and you know if you aren't) then shoo. Otherwise, enjoy..**.**

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**Part IIIB: Echoes of the Past, Part 2**

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For a tortuous moment, Booth felt the wave of panic that had been threatening to overwhelm him—the aftershock of the mystical tsunami that he'd felt he was drowning in as a tidal wave of memories, thoughts, and feelings that made absolutely no sense to him still lingering in a debilitating manner—began to recede and a warmth took its place. That warmth was deceptive, however, as it hung over and masked a deeper ache that caught Booth off guard. Slowly, he became aware of a vague sense of loss that was itself tinged with and made sharper by the long shadow of regret, guilt, and betrayal that had hung like a black funeral pall over his bruised and battered heart for centuries although he was only just now becoming aware of what it was and the feelings threatened to break him**. **

But, beyond it all, the ache of guilt and regret that he felt itself seemed littered with, there was something else. At first, like everything else it was subtle. He didn't realize what it was until the static of that familiarly foreign emotion crept up on Booth and slammed him do hard as so quickly that he felt, in one moment, like he'd been sucker-punched and, in the next, like the wind had been knocked out of him. It wasn't just that he was surprised, bewildered and shocked by the man who walked with his gait, grasped things with his hands and spoke with his voice—albeit cloaked with a lilting brogue. It wasn't simply that the memories flooding over him made him question himself.

As he blinked away the jarring image of Brennan, his friend and partner, brutally torturing and killing another woman who'd crossed her and challenged her for his—_his?!—_attention, he felt the most basic assumptions he'd held about who he was and where (and what) he'd been crumble like a sand castle under a crashing wave.

_Was it all a lie? _

He felt himself struggling to even breathe at the thought that the woman he'd known for years who held up reason, objectivity and justice as paragon virtues was, in fact, capable of lethally jealous rage.

_Everything? Was everything false?_

Everything he thought he knew about everything that actually mattered seemed to be wobbling with rapidly growing uncertainty on the razor's edge between truth and lie.

_God, what's happening to me? To us? Bones...God help me...please. Help me...please._

He felt like he was drowning, and he reached out for the only sure thing that it had seemed had ever been able to buoy him in times like these: her. It seemed like that, no matter how rough things got, no matter how hard he'd been battered by the world around him, she was there for him, there to help him, there to anchor him. He could swear that it had always been that way—for as long as he could remember. And curiously, while that fact itself should have unnerved him a bit, he found a strange comfort in it. It was as if it was one of the laws of physics, it was so natural—when the shit got to be too much, he could always look for her, and there she always was.

_They sat in front of her fireplace, the crackling of the flames the only sound in the room aside from her steady breathing and his occasional shifting as he moved his head from one of her shoulders to the other or adjusted the way in which his hands were clasped as his arms wrapped around her naked torso. A thin light blue crocheted blanket lay bunched in her lap as she felt him press his chest against her back._

"_You're not staying long," she murmured, her voice a bit sad and wistful even in its drowsy repletion as she spoke._

"_No," he agreed softly, his voice low as he spoke the answer which they both already knew before Brennan had even asked the question. Still, Angel felt she deserved an explanation and so continued. "I can't," he said. "I probably shouldn't have even come, but when I found out that you were in Indonesia, I couldn't help myself. I know it's selfish, but I had to come."_

_Leaning back into the strength of his chest, she tried to reassure him with her touch. When he still didn't say anything, Brennan asked another question that she dreaded hearing the answer to, but knew she needed to know so she could start reconciling herself to the idea of, once again, being without him. "How long before you have to leave?" she asked._

"_My flight back to L.A. starts with a connection to Honolulu in three days," he said. "I know you may not be able to take that much time away from the dig, especially since I just showed up out of the blue, but__―"_

"_It's okay," she said quietly. "I'll make the time."_

_He paused for another moment as he began to press a series of small kisses along the curve of her shoulder. "I don't deserve you," he muttered in between kisses. "I know I don't, and I know I shouldn't be here, but I need you. After...after what happened? Losing her? I need to make certain that I haven't lost the one thing that's most important to me." He paused and then sighed, "I'm sorry. I know how you've always felt about her, but__―"_

"_It's okay," she repeated. "You loved her, and you lost her__―__enough so that you've spent three months in a Sri Lankan monastery mourning her. It's okay, Angel."_

_He laid one last kiss on the edge of her shoulder and sighed. Three long months he'd spent in a forest monastery, clad in saffron robes, chanting prayers and mantras in Pali as he tried to wrest his mind away from the thought that, as deeply wounded as he was by the death of the Slayer, his soul would have been crushed into an oblivion of inconceivable bleakness had he lost the woman whose voice was always murmuring in the back of his mind. _

_Twelve weeks he'd sat in silent, mindful meditation, trying to make sense of it all, of the loss and of what he had left in his miserable and sorry excuse for a life. He'd taken long walks in the chattering rainforest in the middle of the night, and, while the knew the lanky old monk that ran the tiny forest cell would disapprove, he found himself looking at how the light of the waxing moon illuminated the path before his sandaled feet and thinking of how her auburn hair shone even in the gray of twilight and how gorgeous her cheekbones and delicate brow looked in the moonlight as she slept next to him._

_As the weeks turned to months, and Angel stubbornly devoted himself to his meditations, it became clear that there was no relief to be found for his anguish in joining the other monks in their sonorous recitation of the Mettā Sutta under the unflinching gaze of a gold-skinned Buddha. He realized what he'd suspected all along: that he'd only find solace in one place, the only place he'd ever found peace and felt truly whole:_

_In her arms._

_And, so, in the end that was why he had sought her out as he'd always done for more than seventy years. When he needed comfort, when he needed to be fixed, when he needed to find himself again and be reminded of who he was and the work he still had left to do, he'd sought her out. And, once again, like the universe saying his decision was the right one, he hadn't had to look that far to find her, and Brennan had appeared close by, as ever, when he needed her the most to do what she always did so well_—_make things okay, and make him believe that things were going to be okay. _

_In the short time they'd already spent together, just as she always did, he began to feel the balm of her healing touch_—_physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Brennan worked her magic on him, he believed, in more ways than one. And, already, there was a part of him that began to believe that he might be strong enough, because of her, to be able to return to the real world and to once more take up the heavy burden of the tasks that remained for him to do. It was almost as if she herself knew that, and sometimes with her knowing so many things in his head without him even having to speak a word, he wondered how she had come to know him better than he knew himself. Angel took only a minute before he mentally shrugged as he always did when he tried to make sense of Brennan and then finally responded to her original statement as he realized what it had probably cost for her to say for his benefit. Tightening his hold on her to see if he could convey the deep affection he felt for her to her, and his unending gratitude that went hand in hand with that affection, he slowly shook his head._

"_No, it's not," he said softly. "It's not okay, and I know that. It's not fair for you to have to pick up the pieces because of what happened between her, and I do know that, Bren. Please know that I do. It's just_—" _Every hour, every minute he spent with her, he felt somehow recharged, as if the world outside of them wore him down, and she was the reservoir which he drew on to find his energy, his center again. He loved the way she made him feel at times like these, but a part of him hated himself for using her this way. He wondered if she got a tenth of the benefit from his company that he drew from hers. Pushing away his feelings, Angel finally added with a sigh. "I'm sorry, Bren. I know it's selfish, but...like I said, I just can't help it."_

_Angel's mouth hung open as he thought about what he'd heard about how Buffy had leaped to her death. Even though he hadn't been there, he swore he could see perfectly in his mind's eyes how the Slayer had thrown herself into a roiling portal of blinding blue and violet light to close it and thus prevent a flood of demonkind from gushing forth from it and letting loose cataclysmic destruction on the world. She'd sacrificed herself, for her sister Dawn, and for the wider world, echoing the words of the First Slayer, Sineya, who had appeared to Buffy as a spirit guide, telling her that, 'Death is your gift.'_

_He remembered the disbelief he'd felt at first hearing the news from Willow when she phoned him just after the crew of Angel Investigations had returned to the Hyperion after their unexpected stay in Pylea. Angel had immediately gone to Sunnydale, but it was only when he heard the further details from Spike and insisted on going to the cemetery where her memorial stood that somehow it all had become real, particularly when he saw her gravestone, her epitaph engraved in cold granite leaving no doubt that she was, in fact, gone. _

_Brennan heard his sigh and felt him swallow hard as he rested his chin on her shoulder. "It's my fault," he croaked miserably. "I should've been there. Had I been there, to help her fight, and not abandoned her like I did, she wouldn't have been all alone. She wouldn't have gotten lost. She'd still be here. She wouldn't have died—"_

_Brennan closed her eyes to keep from rolling them as Angel waxed guiltily poetic about the Slayer as she knew he had a tendency to do whenever guilt and Sunnydale were mentioned in the same thought. She could feel his hands clench and the muscles of his chest and forearms tighten against her as his jaw rolled from side to side in the gesture that she knew was a harbinger of a dark brooding attack and it was at that point that she knew she needed to cut it off at the pass in a way only she could._

"_Angel," she said firmly, trying to keep her voice low as she sought to veer him away from the ditch he was rapidly swerving toward. "You weren't her protector," she insisted. "She was a Slayer. She had a Watcher of her own, and besides that, even though I never met her, everything that I've been told by Spike and others says she wasn't the type that asked for or accepted help all that easily. And, more importantly, I think you of all people know that. So, please stop that. This most definitely isn't your fault."_

"_You don't understand," he said in a half-grunt of weary frustration. "I let her down," he grumbled. His jaw tensed as he chewed on the situation in his head, his mind grinding away at the notion seemingly as if he hadn't heard a word Brennan said. "You don't understand the way she was__**," **__he said with a noticeable irritation and defensiveness in his voice. "You didn't know her, Bren, the way I did and...well, the way she...well, she could just be so reckless sometimes."_

_"It's true that I never had the undue pleasure of making her personal acquaintance," Brennan said, deliberately keeping her tone as soft, even and devoid of sarcasm as she could, recognizing in his rising pitch that he was getting defensive. "But just because I wasn't doesn't change the truth of the fact that she had a Watcher whose job it was to curb her natural tendencies toward recklessness, and that __wasn't __you—"_

_"Pffft," Angel hissed. "Screw the Watcher. It was my duty to make sure she didn't ever get in over her head, you know, and I let her down. I fucking let her down and she went out and...and now she's gone."_

_"This isn't your fault," she said again, trying to cut off his self-flagellating rant without getting into an argument about the Slayer. "Please, Angel..." _

_Angel tightened his hold on Brennan, wrapping his arms around her even more snugly as he shook his head and kissed her shoulder again, letting his lips linger against her salty, sweat-damp skin as he grunted quietly in response to a wave of dread that flashed through his belly. _

"_If I-I..."_

_He swallowed again, his senses awash in the feel of her even as his mind still swirled with thoughts of another woman. But with every passing second, as he felt the skin of her back sticking to his chest, her body heat warming his cool skin as he felt her breathing and the murmuring wobble of her pulse vibrating against his lips, he knew what was real and what was most immediate, as he felt himself inundated by the feel and the smell and the presence of the woman who eclipsed all others. _

"_If I ever lost you, Bren, I..."_

_Angel sighed, remembering the last time that he'd seen Brennan in peril because of him and the gut-twisting sensation of terror he'd felt in the fraction of a second before his blood boiled over in a possessive, protective rage that tightened his sinews like a swiftly-drawn bow._

_One night, not so many years before, Angel had found himself an argument with a shape-shifting LeForger demon while the vampire was brooding at his favored haunt, The Devil's Own—the longtime hangout for Manhattan's demons having moved from its original location on the Lower East Side to a new spot in Midtown in the late 70's. The dispute had escalated to a snarling fist-fight that got the two of them thrown out of the bar, followed by a foot-chase through the crowded sidewalks of Broadway before finally ending with Angel tossing the demon off the top of the 41-story Deutsche Bank building._

_Having watched the LeForger plummet forty floors to the pavement below, Angel had been quite sure he'd seen the last of him._

_So when he'd first seen the green-eyed man with the shiny, shoulder-length black hair sidle up to Brennan as she waited for vampire lover to return from the men's room, he didn't think much of it. She was a strikingly beautiful woman_—_always had been and always would be, Angel supposed, either because of her powers, the deals she'd made over the years, or a combination of the two_—_and Angel had watched men hit on her countless times over the 120 years since he'd first met her. But as he rounded the corner and approached the pair from behind, he felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. The TV in the bar was tuned to a news broadcast that was replaying President Reagan's address the night before explaining why the U.S. government had violated the international embargo and sold weapons to Iran, but no one other than the scrawny, bored bartender seemed to notice. The instant Angel heard the man's reedy voice and smelled the vaguest hint of sulfur as the man's sweat hit his keen nose, he wondered how the demon had survived his tumble off the skyscraper six months earlier. _

_It happened so quickly. No sooner had Angel recognized the shape-shifter when the LeForger's green eyes flashed a bright amber and the long fingers of his broad-palmed hand curled into a clawed fist. He reared his arm back and swung for her face before Angel could react. The movement was so swift that Brennan's cheek was gashed open before Angel could close his fist around the collar of the LeForger's jacket. The sight of her bright red blood welling up in the gash that ran across his soulmate's flawless ivory skin made Angel's own visage curl into a demonic snarl as he jerked the LeForger away from the bar. However, as he pulled the shape-shifter off his feet, Angel felt the air around him crackle with a pale blue electricity that he knew all too well. He'd felt a searing in his knuckles as the LeForger was torn from his grasp and thrown against the glass block wall of the fashionable Upper West Side nightclub by an unseen hand. _

_Angel's eyes narrowed, and he blinked away the memory as Brennan's naked body shifted against his chest._

_"You don't need to worry about me," she was saying. "You know I can take care of myself, Angel. I always have, and I always will. You know that."_

_He nodded, murmuring something inaudible against the soft, sweat-damp skin of her shoulder. Stroking his fingertips across the smooth, warm skin of her bare belly, he sighed and croaked, "I know, but..." He said he knew, but the fact of the matter was, every demon he'd ever slain in L.A. made him more acutely aware of the dangers that lurked in the shadows and, more disturbingly, of how, for every powerful evil he'd battled and beat, a dozen even more powerful evils lay waiting in the wings. And it was that—__that__ fact—that made him fear for her, despite her powers. "It's just...you really have no idea what kind of stuff is out there. Even you, Bren—I still worry about you sometimes." The truth of the matter was that he worried about her all the time when he was not with her, but he wouldn't admit this to her aloud for fear that she'd take it as an indictment of her ability to care for herself. "You know that," he added, punctuating his statement with another feather-light kiss against the back of her shoulder as his fingers gently stroked the silky skin below her belly-button._

_Brennan inhaled a sharp breath at feeling his tender touch, then reached for his hand, curling her slender fingers around his thicker ones. "It's okay, Angel," she said, narrowing her eyes at hearing her own non sequitur which seemed to bubble forth from nowhere other than some curious sense she felt deep within that he needed comfort that only she could provide._

_Angel lowered his head and pressed another feather-light kiss on the curve at the base of her neck. "I needed to see you," he whispered. "To touch you, to feel you before I went back. I needed..."_

_Turning slightly, she tilted her head so that she could smile reassuringly at him as she said, "It's alright, Angel. I know what you need and why you're here."_

"_Do you?" he questioned her, his voice still sad as he spoke. "Really, Bren?"_

"_Yes," she told him. "And, just so you know, I'm okay with that, Angel." When he quirked an eyebrow at her, Brennan tilted her head in slight exasperation. "Oh, come on," she said. "I really am, Angel. She...I-I_—_" she continued as he continued to give her a questioning look that clearly showed that despite her words, he remained unconvinced of her sincerity. Slightly stung, but understanding his reasons for doubting her truthfulness, Brennan tried again. "Look, you can believe me or not, but I don't bear any ill will towards the dead, okay?"_

_Angel studied her for a minute and then confessed to her with a sigh. "I guess I'm just surprised is all," he said, his voice almost a grumble. "I know how you felt about her." He looked down and sighed. "About me and her. I've always known. You didn't like her." He stopped, his mind flashing to a dozen arguments they'd had over the years since he'd taken up his tumultuous relationship with the Slayer, and then he shook his head slightly. "I mean, you really didn't like her. I know that. You never did, and I get why. Hell, I probably would hate her more than you did if I was the one in your shoes, but you don't need to..." His voice trailed off as he clenched his jaw. "You don't need to put on a show of tolerance for me, Bren, okay? Just be honest with me. Just be truthful. You've always been that with me. So since I know you hated her guts, just be sincere. Don't...don't not be you, okay?"_

_Trying to resist the urge to tense up and sigh again at the implication that the Slayer, even in death, could cause her to go against her nature, lest her body language reveal more to Angel than she wanted, Brennan merely took a deep breath. "Angel," she replied. "Like I said, I know that whatever else happened between you two, for a period of time, she was an important to you and you..." She stopped, grimacing a bit in spite of herself, as if the words she was about to say had caught in her throat before she continue. "You loved her," she finally said. "You're right. I didn't like it. I still don't like it. And, I'll certainly never understand it, but_—" _Her voice hesitated a moment before she continued. "I do accept the fact that you loved her, so I know that her loss makes you feel very sad." If she had been as smart as she usually liked to portray, she would've stopped, but some of the bitterness she'd always felt at Angel's relationship with the Slayer bubbled to the surface when she then added, almost under her breath, "Given how important she was to you, I just like to think that maybe...if and when it ever happens to me, I'll rate more than three months of mourning, hmmm?"_

_She knew it was a poor joke and instantly regretted saying it when she felt his body stiffen against hers...and not in a good way._

_Angel's brow furrowed at her remark, knitting low and hard over his shimmering brown eyes as he felt a bit of bile bubble up and coat the back of his throat. "Bren," he groaned in protest, unwinding his arms from around her waist as he leaned back, breaking the contact between her sweat-slicked back and his warm, muscular chest. "Don't..." He sighed and raked his hand through his sweaty hair, leaving it even more disheveled than it had been after their frantic round of lovemaking. "I went to Sri Lanka not to...well, not just because of her, but..." Rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hand, he uttered a quiet grunt of frustration. _

_"I'm sorry, Angel," Brennan said awkwardly, her voice sour with regret at her ill-considered quip. "I didn't mean to—"_

_"You have no idea," he said grimly, cutting her off as he shook his head. "Like I said, I didn't just go there for her, Bren."_

_Tilting her head slightly so she could look him directly in the eye, Brennan asked in a quiet voice, "Then why else did you go?" She felt a sour taste in the back of her mouth as she thought about Cordelia, the young, high-breasted brunette who worked for Angel in L.A. "Was there something else you were trying to get out of your system, Angel?" she asked, wondering if Angel had the will to resist Cordy if the young woman ever decided to make a move on him—she was, after all, attractive and above all convenient. And for his part, the vampire being as handsome as he was, Bren would hardly blame her for trying to woo him in a weak moment of dark, brooding sexiness even if she resented her for it._

_His voice choked slightly in his throat as he said, "Don't you know, Bren? Don't you?" Angel's features slackened and his mouth fell open in a scarcely-audible sigh, then he turned and looked away, his brown eyes glimmering with emotion as he focused his gaze on the batik tapestry hanging on the opposite wall. He closed his eyes and shook his head, working his jaw back and forth for a moment before he turned to meet her pale blue eyes again. "If I ever lost you, Bren...I don't know what I'd do," he sighed, the pain clear in his voice. "I don't know what I'd do or what would happen, but I know that three months wouldn't even begin to help me pull myself out of...assuming that I even could, which I'm telling you right now is..." He paused and shook his head sadly. "I don't know, Bren. I don't think I could...well..."_

_"Angel..."_

_The soothing tone with which she said his name didn't seem to affect him at all. He stared off into the distance, his gaze passing through the screen of hand-carved geringging wood that separated the living room from the bedroom with its futon and wicker furniture, his jaw shifting from one side to the other and back again as he felt a sense of darkness and foreboding coil deep in his gut, tightening the muscles of his chest as his fingernails dug into the soft pile of the olive-hued Rajasthani dhurrie carpet that covered the floor in front of the comfortable if small flat that Brennan had rented in Jakarta for her field season._

_"You're everything to me," he finally told her when he began to talk once more, his voice thick with emotion in its quiet intensity. "If I lost you, Bren...ever really lost you? Well, I'm strong. I can survive a bunch of shit. But, __that__? I don't think_—_if that happened? I don't think I could handle it. I wouldn't know how. And if you...if something happened to you...if you got hurt or if..." He swallowed hard as he struggled to give a name to his worst possible nightmare. "If you...if I lost you, I don't think there's anything that would make it worth living another day." A distant memory flashed before his eyes as he remembered the bleak despair he'd felt the night she found him in an alley behind a Chicago meat packing warehouse on a dark, cold Halloween, sifting through a pile of scrap wood looking for a piece suitable to use to drive a stake through his own heart. "I can't see how I could ever get over that, you know, no matter how long I..." He licked his lips thoughtfully and sighed. "I just don't think I could, Bren..."_

_Brennan was quiet for a moment and then said, "Let's not think of it. You're here now, and we have this time together. Let's enjoy that and take it for what we can, hmmm?"_

_He stared at her for a moment, then saw her serious expression soften as a faint smile curved her elegant, square-jawed face. His only answer was a soft growl of agreement before he reached for her, pushed her down on the rug, and then twisted enough so that he could once more cover her body with his, wanting in that moment to take her, to bury himself inside of her, to possess her and take comfort in her, and to drown himself completely in the inescapable reality of her._

Booth looked down and saw his hands shaking as he felt a bead of sweat roll down the side of his face. He stared at his partner, open-mouthed and unblinking, as his eyes were drawn to the silver piping along the top edge of the bright red bustier of her Wonder Woman costume. The bustier lifted her bosom so that her soft, ample breasts were nearly spilling out of the cups. He gulped, trying to swallow away the dryness in his mouth as he tried to make some sense of the scenes that were rushing through his mind. His heart was thundering in his chest, the murmur of his blood in his ears peaking to the point he could see Brennan's pink lips move, but he couldn't make out the words she was saying. He shook his head, closed his eyes, and then opened them again, his breath heaving as he found himself unable to tear his eyes from her chest and the soft, strokable curves that led to the cleft between her upthrust breasts. The sight of her chest and bare shoulders glistening with sweat sent a raw shiver up his spine and he growled deep in his throat as he suddenly found himself awash in yet another invasive memory.

_Angel sighed as he threw open the door to his penthouse apartment on the top floor of Wolfram & Hart's Los Angeles office. _

_It had been a long day—between spending his morning with a couple of clients, an unruly pair of Vjaric demons, twin brothers, who ran a puppy mill in Glendale to launder money from their cockfighting franchise which, in turn, was a front for a demon fight club that held no-holds-barred matches in a defunct machine shop in Compton on Friday nights, and having his afternoon swallowed up by a seemingly endless conference call with the same irritating Dubliners he'd been dealing with for months about relocating their demon-breeding program from a blighted district in Durban, South Africa to a industrial park in a quiet suburb of Capetown—and he subsequently found himself caught in the frustrating limbo between exhaustion and being wired. As soon as he opened the door to his penthouse apartment, his nostrils filled with the acute but very welcoming smell of cinnamon, apples, brown sugar, and cloves. The apartment was dimly lit, and he could hear strains of music murmuring from his bedroom. Throwing his sport coat on the peg next to the front door, he kicked off his Cole Haan loafers, and made his way toward the source of the enticing scents and pleasing sounds. _

_As he rounded the corner, he saw the tell-tale flicker of candlelight cast long, wobbling shadows against the wall and he could hear her voice, low and breathy, singing quietly along with the music that played from his Bose iPod dock._

Sleight of hand and twist of fate

On a bed of nails she makes me wait

And I wait without you

With or without you

With or without you...

_He walked into the bathroom and could not suppress his grin as he admired the way the candlelight illuminated her damp skin, casting a warm orange glow over her ivory shoulders. She reclined in the garden tub, her sigh scarcely audible over the rolling murmur of the massage jets that kneaded the muscles of her lower back._

_"Hey," he said to her, his smile audible in his low voice. Angel arched an eyebrow as she leaned her head back against the wall and groaned quietly in response to his greeting. "You okay?" he asked._

_She lowered her head slightly and opened one skeptical eye. "That's the last damn time I let you talk me into doing that," she said, lifting her hand from the water as she jabbed the air insolently in his general direction with a wet index finger. A single drop of warm water rolled off the tip of her finger and splashed back into the tub before she added, "My lumbar muscles have been sore all day because of you."_

_Angel instantly recognized what Brennan was talking about. He couldn't help but to smirked cockily at the memory of the particularly athletic way he'd taken her in the shower that morning, then caught himself and bit back his smile in favor of a frown as he saw her disdainful look glaring back at him from where she sat in the tub. _

_"I'm sorry," he said as he slid his belt out of its loops and dropped it on the floor. "You seemed to enjoy it at the time," he noted, biting the inside of his lip as he remembered the way she'd screamed his name when they shattered together, collapsing against the cold tile wall, the steaming water pelting them as the last waves of his release washed into her. _

_At hearing the sound of his belt buckle hitting the tile floor, Brennan opened both eyes, giving him a long, appraising look, pressing her lips together in a firm line as she tried to conceal her interest as he continued to undress. Their eyes met briefly as his fingers toyed with the button-closure of his slacks and, after an unspoken exchange that passed between their glittering eyes in a matter of a few heartbeats, Angel flashed an eyebrow and smirked as Brennan once more closed her eyes as confirmation of his unasked question._

_Taking her glance and apparent acquiescence for what it was_—_a silent invitation of sorts to join her_—_he unfastened his tailored wool trousers, shimmied them off his hips, and let them fall to the floor as he pulled his shirt over his head and let it, too, drop at his feet._

"Yeah?" she said, an unimpressed evenness in her deadpan tone of voice. "Well, I've changed my mind."

"Can I join you?" he asked with a crooked grin as he bent down and peeled off his socks. "Please?" He raised his eyebrows solicitously as he shucked off his boxer briefs and walked over to the tub. "It's been a bitch of a day, Bren, and I think a nice hot soak would start to help make it better."

_Brennan shot him a narrow glare and then her face softened when she sighed as she saw how weary he looked. "Fine," she grumbled as she closed her eyes and relaxed into the pulsing stream. "But, I'm not moving my back away from this massage jet, if that's what you're asking."_

_"Okay," he said with a small laugh, shrugging as he slid into the tub and took his seat opposite her. "I guess you won't be in need of my special massage services, then, hmmm?" He shook his head in mock regret before he sighed, "Well, it looks like it finally happened, hmmm? These hands of mine have finally been replaced by a machine."_

_Brennan watched him settle into place, hooking his legs loosely around the backs of her smooth calves, sighing as the hot, foamy water warmed his cool skin as he grumbled about being replaced by a machine. Angel didn't see her cool blue eyes narrow because he let out a hiss through his tightly-pursed lips as he shifted his hips with a faint squeak against the porcelain tub. He leaned back against the wall of the tub, closing his eyes as the hot water, the soothing, spicy scent of the bubble bath, the faint melody of the stereo, and the undulating rhythm of the half-dozen flickering candles balanced on the edge of the tub combined to lull him into a state of deep relaxation._

_After a couple of moments, as his head lolled back and he began to murmur softly in his doze that was quickly edging towards a deep sleep, Brennan felt she'd been patient enough as she nudged his leg with hers._

_"Whuh?" he grunted, his eyes snapping open, as a surge of adrenaline flooded his veins and he quickly looked around in a panic. "What?"_

_Rolling her eyes and shaking her head, she nudged him again and spoke in a low, sultry voice. "You know," she said with a wink. "I've been thinking. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe there is one thing you could do to make it up to me for hurting my back this morning."_

_"What's that?" he asked with a quirked brow_

_**,** blinking a few times as he took in the crooked-mouthed smile on Brennan's face. That wicked little half-grin of hers had been turning him on for a century and a half. Every time her slender, pink, kissable lips parted on one side to reveal her bright, straight teeth, he knew she wanted him, and much like the dog in response to Pavlov's bell, as soon as he saw that crooked, lascivious grin, he felt a raw tug behind his navel as his balls tightened and his cock began to get hard. He lay back against the wall of the tub, gripping the top of the tub with his hand as felt his body crackle with want and come alive. He leaned his head to the side and his brown eyes darkened to the color of hot pitch as he shot her a narrow-eyed smirk._

_The tense, irritated look on her face had all but melted away, and her blue eyes twinkled back at him with lazy interest in the dim, flickering candlelight. She leaned forward a little, wincing a bit as she reached for his hand, sliding it off the ledge of the tub and pulling it under the mantle of foamy bubbles that floated on top of the warm and scented water. "I think you know what," she said with a lecherous grin as his fingertips brushed against the sensitive skin on the inside of her left thigh. "Don't you?"_

_"Mmmm," he murmured with a lopsided grin of his own as he as he moved his fingers forward of his own volition, rolling his thumb between the cleft that separated her folds, and chuckling himself as he as he heard a low, breathy moan sound from deep in her throat as he began to stroke her in earnest. "Maybe I do, lass," he grinned. "Maybe I do."_

_Dozens of such scenes—whether dreams or memories, Booth couldn't be sure—flooded his mind in the moments after Brennan pulled her lips away from his. Every one of them felt so real and so immediate, he responded to them viscerally. The scenes themselves made his heart ache and his pulse race, his face turning ashen as the feelings seemed to worm their way into his mind and heart so deeply that Booth found himself unable to any longer discern where his life, experiences, feelings and memories stopped and the invasive ones began. The feelings of inexplicable familiarity amid the unfamiliar were nothing new to him, but he had never felt anything like this before._

_Or have I?_

He gritted his teeth and shook his head, raking his fingers through his hair with a frustrated growl as he squeezed his eyes tightly shut and struggled against the riptide of images and sounds that tugged at him from within.

_Booth remembered standing on the roof of his and Brennan's hotel in Los Angeles during the investigation of the case of the woman found buried in the sand at LAX. _

_He stood on the roof, his eyes scanning the churning crowd of people as the hotel guests moved around, each one with a brightly-hued designer martini or a margarita in one hand and a plate of tapas in the other. He arched an eyebrow as he saw couples seated in the strange softly-lit, egg-shaped plastic cubicles that reminded him of the Woody Allen movie _Sleeper, _and wondered whatever happened to the old-fashioned hotel bar with the dark, well-burnished wood and brass-appointed interior that served six different kinds of beer and whatever kinds of whiskeys, vodkas, rums and brandies that sat on the shelf behind the bartender, who always had a name like 'Mickey' or 'Sal.' The whole setup struck him as very strange, obnoxiously trendy and more than a little creepy. _

_He shook his head, walked over to the ledge that circled the rooftop and leaned onto the steel railing as he stared out onto the city below. It reminded him of the Manhattan skyline, or more so of downtown Chicago at night, except that there were fewer exceptionally tall buildings than in either of those cities. The buildings twinkled in the distance, a tapestry of oranges and yellows accentuated by occasional points of green, red and blue light, and his eyes were quickly drawn to the tallest building, the brightly-lit 73-story U.S. Bank Tower, which towered over the surrounding skyscrapers with almost regal prominence, capped with a glass crown that glowed white that night. _

_Booth felt a familiar fluttering in his gut and a twinge in his chest, and he knew it immediately for what it was. His old, erstwhile friend, déjà vu, had returned to haunt him again. It didn't make any sense, because Booth was quite sure he'd never been on the roof of any building in L.A. before, looking out at the skyline, never mind at night. _

_After a moment of thought, he couldn't remember the last time he'd stood outdoors on the roof of a building at night, looking down at the city below_—_any city, for that matter, other than his hometown, Philadelphia, or more recently, D.C. He wasn't sure why he felt this way, but as he stared out at the beautiful L.A. skyline, he couldn't shake the powerful sense of déjà vu that tugged at him from within and left him breathless, his gut churning and his mind in a haze. Shaking his head again, he turned back around and flagged down a wandering waitress to get himself a beer._

_Booth watched the waitress walk away and scanned the rooftop bar with its weird glowing egg cubicles. His eyes came to rest on a red one along the right hand side of the roof, and on the woman who lay on her stomach inside of it, her fingers clicking away at the keyboard of her laptop. He leaned forward against the rooftop ledge and looked down at the street dozens of stories below, then turned back to gaze at his partner. From his vantage point, her body was partially obscured, and he could see her curved, blue jean-clad hip, the gentle arch of her lower back, her shoulders and the back of her head. _

_A twittering sensation bubbled in his belly as he watched her from a distance, and he shook off the raw tingle that made his shoulders twitch. Licking his lips, he thought about how it had felt the first time that they'd worked on an out-of-town case, the fifth one they'd worked together after he'd ventured to the lecture hall at American University just to get Cam off his ass about the lack of progress in the Cleo Eller case—which was actually only the fourth since he'd managed to coax her back into working with him on a regular basis—and how it had felt to dance with her in that small town bar in Washington state. It had made him ill watching her dance with the sheriff, the doctor and the shipping-store guy. They were damn near pawing at her, and it made him want to punch somebody in the mouth. _

_He remembered the surprised look in her eyes when he'd yanked her out of the big, dumb sheriff's grubby mitts. At the time, it didn't make sense to why the whole display made him feel so aggressive and possessive and territorial—it wasn't like it was something he'd thought about when it happened. He'd just done it, impulsively and without forethought...and it had felt...__right__. So right. Stepping in like that, staking his claim to her, it was as natural as breathing—almost like a reflex or an instinct. _

_It made his skin crawl seeing those stupid, worthless men touching her like that. So he'd stepped in, took her into his arms, and when he did, something inside of him vibrate with an all-encompassing happiness that he vaguely remembered feeling before at odd times in his life, but not in a very, very long time—not since the night he'd kissed her on the stoop behind his old pool hall in a misting rain that should've chilled him to the bone, but had made him only feel as warm as he'd ever felt or when he saw her beautiful face again for the first time in more than a year when he heroically sprung her from the custody of the Department of Homeland Security's interrogation room at Dulles. It wasn't that he'd never felt happy before. It was that he'd never felt that kind of soul-warming, gut-tingling, brain-buzzing, genuinely intoxicating kind of happiness before __her__. She'd felt so good, her hips snug against his as he spun her around and dipped her down, and for a few minutes, as he danced with her in that bar, he'd found himself unable to shake the feeling that she was his. _

_But she wasn't. _

_She wasn't his, no matter how much he wondered if she ever could be. She'd never belong to him. She just...wasn't. And probably never would be..._

_She just __wasn't__ his._

_It hadn't been an easy thought to wrestle with in his head because Booth had always wanted what he wanted and gone after it. It had been even harder to accept the idea. But he knew he didn't have a choice. So that was why he'd taken everything that he'd ever felt about Brennan from the very first minute he'd ever seen her__—__that messy ball of deliciously torturous want, puzzling déjà vu, and gut-tightening possessiveness__—a__nd stuffed it deep down inside of him. Each day he tried to ignore those feelings as he went about his business, trying to live his life and build their partnership as he worked with her and grew closer to her, even though way deep down he knew he always wanted more, but held himself back from truly being with her as he watched her, he liked to imagine, do the same. _

_He could feel it__**—**__he knew it was there even if he wasn't sure what __it__ was—every time he was with her. He always had, and he knew he always would, even if there was something that was keeping him from feeling everything there was for the two of them to feel together. It was as if there was some kind of invisible barrier between them. It reminded him of a dog behind a so-called invisible fence, running full-speed all the way up to the edge of the front lawn, and then stopping before his front paws hit the sidewalk. He found it annoying and frustrating on a good day. On a bad day, well, he wanted to take his gun and go find himself an ice cream truck with big plastic clown on top and blow that smug, creepy-faced little fucker to smithereens. _

_His natural level of frustration was made even worse because, the more he struggled to try and make sense of things, the more he merely made his head hurt as he wondered what she was holding back and why he couldn't, for the life of him, make enough sense of it to understand it. _

_Even still, he knew._

_There was something there, he instinctively knew, something he could sense but couldn't exactly put his finger on. He felt it. He always had, right from the very first minute. He could see it in her pale blue eyes, a tension__—__a reticence, tinged with what he thought might be a bit of wistful sadness or bitter regret__—__that he could feel, but couldn't quite understand. It was as if she was holding something inside of her, the knowledge of something painful that she kept hidden behind the wall of cool rationality and professional distance, tucked away where he couldn't see it and she didn't have to confront it. He didn't know what it was, but he still knew there was something there. _

_He __knew__ it._

_He shook his head and sighed, shaken out of the morass of his own thoughts by the gleaming smile of the blond, green-eyed waitress who'd tapped him on the shoulder and handed him a bottle of Sierra Nevada that he'd ordered. Blinking his addled thoughts away as he came back to the present, he averted his gaze from the young woman's flirtatious grin and quickly scrawled on the bill to charge the drink to his room._

"_Thanks," he muttered softly, turning away to lean once more over the ledge, taking a long sip as he stared at the sparkling lights of the city below, and satisfied when she left him to his thoughts and the beauty of the L.A. skyline._

There were many places, all of them so alien, and yet every single of them so puzzlingly familiar. Booth narrowed his eyes and shook his head, his mouth hanging slightly open as he struggled to calm his racing pulse and even his breaths the way he'd learned to do at the U.S. Army Sniper School. He tried to find something, anything to anchor his chaotic mind to as his head ached, filled with a thousand new memories of cities he'd never been to, homes he'd never visited, beds he'd never slept in, all in places and times he wasn't even sure he remembered learning about in school.

_Galway..._

_London..._

_Bucharest..._

_Cairo..._

_Chicago..._

_Mérida..._

_Calgary...Rome...Saigon...Paris...Lima..._

_Vienna...Munich...Buenos Aires..._

_Bangkok...Edinburgh...Beijing..._

All of them so foreign and distant, yet intimately familiar, and none of it made any sense—none at all.

He felt weighed down by the gush of memories that filled his mind. He felt as if he were being pulled away from everything that was familiar and steady and certain to him by an unknown but irresistibly tempting and extremely powerful force that he couldn't identify. His knees wobbled as the lab began to spin around him, and his gut sank as if a trapdoor had suddenly opened up beneath him. Everything seemed so random and foreign, each moment disconnected from the next, alien from one another and from the life he knew—everything except for one important and unmistakable detail:

_Her._

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**-tbc-**

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**AN2: **Well, since we're so nice, we won't make you wait long for the next part, since it's finished and is posting as we speak. So, hurry on and see what else is gushing in Booth's mind. And, if you don't mind, let us know what you thought of the first part.


	5. Part IIIC: Echoes of the Past, Part 3

**Echoes True and False**

**By:** Lesera128 & dharmamonkey

**Rated: **M

**Disclaimer: **Here we posit our normal rigmarole. No, we don't own anything from _Bones _or _Angel... _or anything else. Yes, we're wreaking what havoc we can with these characters that we don't own to create an awesome story. But, since it's only for the purposes of creative enjoyment and amusing distraction, we think we're okay. Are there any other questions? No? ::blinks:: Good. Then moving on―

**A/N: **This part is almost twice as long as the last one, but we hope it starts to fill in some missing pieces. Enjoy!

**UNF Alert: **Okay, fangs and sex are involved in this one. So really...turn back now if that isn't your kink or you shouldn't be reading this stuff. We mean it. Really...

* * *

**Part IIIC: Echoes of the Past, Part 3**

* * *

Booth's heart was racing, thundering in his chest as the blood roared in his ears. He lifted his head with a heavy swallow and opened his eyes, only to see her pale, watery eyes level a piercing stare back at him as yet another image from another time and place quickly flashed in his mind.

_Angel pressed the doorbell button for the third time, wincing slightly at the annoying sound as it buzzed, and he stood in front of the door waiting. He tapped his foot impatiently, his empty belly churning as he felt the bone-deep ache wrought by a century of living hell without seeing her face. He watched the peephole for any sign of discernable change and saw the light that shone through it eventually eclipsed for a few seconds, then heard the two deadbolts turn one after the other and the rattling of the door chain, before the door finally opened, and a familiar face finally greeted him._

_Brennan opened the door and stared at him. She wore very short black bed shorts and a dark red spaghetti-strap tank top. Her pale eyes seemed slightly red, and she definitely looked tired and bleary-eyed. She felt her heart flutter as she saw him standing there on her doorstep. It wasn't that she hadn't expected to see him eventually—although it had been quite a long since she had—but rather that she __had__ expected him. She'd thought a hundred times about what she wanted to say to him when he finally did show up, but after all that time, she finally found herself suddenly at a loss for words. Brennan took a deep breath and tried to gather herself, ignoring the flipping sensation in her belly as she watched him standing there, blinking back at her with an uncertain expression on his face. She glanced down at his hand as he fumbled with his pocket and saw an unfamiliar silver claddagh ring on his right ring finger. Her square jaw suddenly tensed, and she brought her eyes up to meet his with a cool, hard stare._

"_Angel," she said calmly, narrowing her eyes as she drank in the sight of him, clad in a black leather duster, a long-sleeved black T-shirt, and dark blue acid-washed jeans. "What are you doing here?"_

_He opened his mouth to answer, but no words came out, and he pressed his lips together as his jaw tightened. Angel closed his eyes, and he looked down at his booted feet, averting his gaze for a long moment before bringing his eyes back to meet Brennan's._

"_I thought...you and your 'new home,' remember? That's what I think you called it. I thought you were very content there." Angel winced at her words. "So why aren't you in Sunnydale?" she asked, a hard edge to her voice as the name of the place left a bitter taste in her mouth. "Why are you here?"_

"_I left," he finally answered in a grim tone. He looked into her eyes—the same blue eyes that had captivated him for a century and a half—and searched in their depths for the tiniest flicker of warmth. No matter how hard he looked, instead of finding any nurturing warmth, he saw only heat, the heat burning in her eyes that he knew after all those years meant only one thing—she was angry. The look in her eyes spoke to a smoldering anger, the kind that had been burning inside of her for a very long time and which he would not be able to extinguish with the usual flash of an eyebrow or a charming, toothy grin. He felt his hopeful will wither under her icy glare as he said, "I can't...well, I just couldn't stay there anymore."_

"_What?" Brennan furrowed her brow, then leaned her head back and said, "But, I thought...you said...when last we spoke. You seemed content there. You..." _

_Her voice trailed off for a moment as she recalled the excited cadence of his speech the night she'd called him a year and a half earlier. They'd spoken for twenty minutes, and had talked about his new life in California, fighting the various forms of demonkind that bubbled forth from the Hellmouth in Sunnydale, and about her work as a graduate student finally finishing her dissertation in Chicago. The conversation had been cordial, but distant in a way that had haunted her ever since. _

"_What happened?" she asked, her voice sharp as she stared at him._

_Angel tiled his head and then said, "Why do you think something has to have happened for me to be here?"_

_Sighing somewhat, Brennan shruged her shoulders slightly as she replied, "Isn't that how it always goes?"_

"_It's over," Angel replied tersely. "I was wrong. Since the last time I talked to you, things have changed and I've...I just needed to get out. Get a fresh start. So I've decided...I'm going to go to L.A. for a while. But before I did...I needed to, that is...I'm sorry to have come so late..." He glanced at his watch and saw that it was just past five in the morning. "I'm sorry, but...I need you, Bren. I-I...right now? I really, __really__ need to talk to you. Can I come in?" _

_As he scanned her face expectantly, hoping she would invite him in. He felt a tightness in his chest as he stood there, wanting more than anything to ensconce himself in the warmth of her home and her company, to hear her voice and feel her touch again. The events of the last few months had worn him down, chipping away at his strength, and as he stood before her, he felt the faint echo of her voice inside of him begin to thrum its familiarly reassuring cadence. He rolled his shoulders back as a shiver passed through him. Angel looked at her, his eyes pleading with her to welcome him into her home, even though she'd never rescinded the invitation she'd extended to him more than seventy-five years earlier (or more for him if he counted his time in hell). Given how much time had passed with the awkward way things had been between them, he desperately wanted to find some way to make things right between them even if he also hoped_—_but didn't dare admit, even to himself_—_that she might, as she usually did, help him feel grounded and confident in his latest choice concerning how and where to proceed with his life._

_Although he'd never forgotten a thing about her, he felt a warmth pulse through his limbs at the chance to drink in the sight of her intoxicating beauty as his eyes skimmed over the curve of her slender shoulder and the line of her collarbone. _

"_Please?" he said, his voice soft as he looked at her with the plea clear in his warm brown eyes. "Can I come in?"_

_She stared at him for a long time. It had been three years since she'd last seen him. There had been the occasional email, and one or two phone calls, but she hadn't actually seen him in person since they'd met in New York during a horrible January blizzard that had left her snowed in and unable to return to Chicago after the conference she'd been attending ended. He'd gotten very angry when she'd mentioned that she'd seen Darla for the first time in many, many years and the pair of them had spoken for some time at what had happened in Romania, China, and afterwards. Upset that Brennan had discussed him with his sire, Angel's already intensely broody mood had further soured. Not certain why he was so perturbed, Brennan defended her actions by telling him that he was being too emotional and illogical. They'd then proceeded to have the worst fight they'd had in a number of years and parted on less than favorable terms. _

_For her part, Brennan had returned to Chicago only long enough to book a flight to Central America to join a dig that one of her professors, Michael Stires, was leading in El Salvador. For his part, she later found out, Angel had gone on a bout of self-deprivation and angry brooding that reached new levels (even for him) so that by the time the demon Whistler had found him, he'd been in less than stellar conditioning. _

_As usual, he refused to break the gaze her eyes had established when her piercing blue irises met his soft brown ones. When she saw no anger present, only pleading, she finally relented._

"_Alright," she said with a sigh, stepping back in the apartment to allow him access. "Come in," she said as he followed her inside. _

_Once the door was shut behind them, he lingered in the foyer, still taking in the sight of her. _

_When he still remained quiet, she furrowed her brow a bit and asked, "What?"_

"_It's just that, well, you look tired, Bren," Angel said. "Are you okay?"_

"_I'm fine, it's just—I've been grading student exams all day, and I was trying to get the final grades averaged so I can turn them in by noon tomorrow." She reached up and rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand as she glanced at a clock on the far wall. "Or, today, I guess." She stopped and then gestured to him, "I know it's been a while, but I don't need to tell you to make yourself comfortable, right?"_

_He shook his head as he peeled off his black leather coat and hung it on a peg on the coat rack near the door, then turned to watch Brennan as she walked into her kitchen and filled the tea kettle with water. _

"_I was going to make some tea before you got here," she explained as she popped the top back on the metal kettle. "I need some caffeine if I'm ever going to have a shot at making it through this." She let the statement hang ambiguously in the air as to what 'this' was. "So, do you want some?"_

"_It depends," he said__**, **__his hesitant expression finally breaking into a lazy grin. "On what kind, you know. There'll be none o' that Earl Gray crap you're always drinking. That swill is like drinking watered-down ladies' perfume and—_"

"_You and your tea fetishes," she said, cutting him off with a snort and a sharp roll of her eyes, punctuating her words with a _pffft_ sound. __"I always keep some Irish Breakfast Tea in the pantry," she said. He tilted his head slightly with an askance look. She shrugged her shoulders, "It's just in case, well...you know? Since I'm never really quite sure when you'll turn up, it's easier to keep some on hand...just in case."_

"_I know," he said with a sigh, leaning against the wall adjoining the kitchen and the dining nook. _

_He watched her carefully as she moved about her kitchen, unable to suppress a smile at the thought that, whatever had happened between them, she'd thought about him enough to keep a fresh box of Irish tea—his longtime favorite—in her pantry. He gave himself a hopeful nod as she dropped two Irish tea bags in a large, purple and white Northwestern University coffee mug, noting that she remembered how he took his tea (double-strong) and how much he hated taking his tea in dainty little cups. _

"_It's been awhile, hasn't it?"_

"_Yes," Brennan said, her voice more curt as she set the copper whistling kettle on the stovetop and turned on the burner. "It has. A very long while in fact."_

_Angel could sense the emotion in her voice. Her wistful tone tugged at something inside of him, and he felt a wave of guilt wash over him as she turned back to face him. He could tell she was hurt, but also that she was holding back on him, something he knew never to be a good thing. Hoping to begin to fix things between them, he looked at her directly in the eyes and spoke simply as he made the first step. "Bren," he began. "I'm sorry." _

"_What for?" she asked, working hard to maintain the calm facade of dispassion that she'd promised herself she'd maintain during any conversation they had before she'd opened the door and let him inside. Still, a bit of habitual snark crept into her voice as she narrowed her eyes at him, and added, "Aside from showing up in the middle of the night at my front door, which isn't anything new, what do you have to be sorry for?"_

_He gave her a pointed look as he said in a quiet voice, "You know what." He raised his dark eyebrows, forming deep creases in his forehead as he pouted his lips and gave her his best puppy-dog expression. "Come on, Bren. You know. You've always known...you've got to know. Don't tell me you don't."_

"_No, Angel," she said with a shake of her head, refusing to give in to him, even as she knew that he was trying to break down the walls she'd carefully constructed in his absence to keep him at bay. "I don't."_

"_Okay," he sighed, realizing that Brennan was going to be difficult before they could get to a point where they could really talk about what he knew they'd put off discussing for far too long as it was. He cocked his head to the side and gave her a narrow-eyed look. __"Alright, then, maybe this will help. The last time we saw each other, we argued, remember? Both of us said a lot of things that I know neither one of us meant. We were angry. Very angry. And we left. You went back to Chicago, then ran off to South America to go play in the dirt with that professor of yours. And I went to_—"

"_California," Brennan said, sharply, snapping her eyes to look at him. "To be more specific, the affluent suburbs north of L.A., as I recall," she told him, unable to say the place's name in that moment even though they both knew that she knew it. "Correct?"_

"_Yeah," he nodded slowly. He hesitated for a beat before he pressed on and then added, almost as if he knew he would be throwing gasoline on an open flame, "Sunnydale."_

_Pursing her lips, Brennan's nostrils began to flare at the mere mention of the small town in California where Angel had spent the last few years of his life living. Shaking her head, she finally swallowed a ball of emotion that had blossomed in her throat and decided instead to latch onto sarcasm as she always had when she needed to cope with difficult and overly emotional situations. "That's rather ironic, don't you think?" she asked after a couple of tense seconds. "I mean, I always thought it was. You moved to a town named after the one thing that could kill you if you ever saw it." She paused for a minute before she spat out, "Yes, I remember now. I chose to do something productive and continue my graduate education by perfecting my skills with intelligent individuals from whom I could actually learn. You, on the other hand, chose to go to Sunnydale_—_the land of sun, suburbia, getting sidetracked, and stereotypical blonde damsels in distress who always need saving from something horrible, right?"_

_Angel could hear bitterness in her voice this time. He wasn't surprised. In fact, he'd expected it when he'd made his decision to come to Chicago to see her. __Although a part of him had dreaded it, he knew they had to talk about what had happened to him in Sunnydale, because it was the only way they could move forward. It was a necessary evil. He swallowed and pursed his lips, then looked up at her and began to speak. _

"_Bren," he sighed. "Come on, alright? Please. Don't do that. It wasn't like that, you know. That...she...that's not why I went there." He paused, knowing, though he was unwilling to admit it aloud, that the reasons he'd originally gone to Sunnydale—he'd gone there at the urging of the demon Whistler, who'd accosted him one night on the streets of New York and had coaxed Angel into venturing to California where he was needed to fight the force of evil that were threatening to overrun the little suburb poised over the Hellmouth—were not the reasons he'd tarried there so long. He blinked away the thought. "It's over," he said, making a wisp-like sound with his lips as he made a gesture with his hand. "My life there? It's...all of that...it's done. Finished."_

"_Okay," she nodded at him. "So, should I say I'm sorry that it didn't work out or should I congratulate you for moving on?"_

"_That's not why I'm here, Bren," he said, the pitch of his voice edging upwards as his frustration mounted. "I mean, I know we need to talk about it so we can get past it, and that's part of the reason why I came here to see you. But can we possibly talk about this without getting all pissy? I didn't...that's not why I came, Bren. I didn't come here to rub your nose in what happened with her—or to have you rub my nose in it, either." _

"_Then, if you don't want my pity or for me to congratulate you, how about I ask what the hell were you thinking?" Brennan asked sharply. She propped her hands on her hips in a gesture of defiance and gritted her teeth as she felt her anger bubbling up in her chest. "I mean...I know we aren't exclusive by any means, so it's not that. But, really, Angel. You staked Darla because of some infantile twit with a savior complex who made you go weak in the knees?"_

"_What?" Angel suddenly snapped__**, **__his deep-set eyes widening with surprise beneath the mantle of his heavy brow. "How_—_wait, how in the hell do you even know about that?"_

_Ignoring his question, Brennan laughed. "I have to admit it took me quite by surprise," she said. "I mean, I know we aren't really 'exclusive'...as the modern parlance goes...and haven't been for a long time, but even back when you were Angelus, when I admit you had little if nothing in the way of standards, there were nonetheless certain...expectations between us—"_

"_Wait," he interrupted sharply. "Wait just a goddamn minute, Bren. We aren't like that anymore and haven't been for a long, __long__ time. And more importantly you know that."_

_Again ignoring his reply, she continued. "For a vampire your age, I'd have expected more of you than to fall for the wide-eyed, flat-chested, slim-waisted teenage ingenue thing." She rolled her eyes in an exaggerated gesture of contempt, then said, "I really do wonder if you're suffering the effects of some kind of cliché midlife crisis, chasing after some underage blonde and riding in like a knight on his white horse to save her, dusting your own sire in the process. The whole thing reeks of a bad Hollywood screenplay..."_

_Angel rubbed his temples as he felt the tension building in his scalp. "How do you know even about that?" he asked, his voice raspy as he recalled the way his sire's body had exploded into dust on the floor of a Sunnydale nightclub. "About Darla?"_

"_Spike," Brennan said simply. When she saw Angel's eyes narrow skeptically and his jaw harden at hearing his grandchilde's name, she explained, "He...well, he and I have developed a type of natural affinity over the years, as you well know He told me about what happened with Darla and Drusilla and...the Slayer."_

"_Right," Angel grunted derisively. After a moment, he asked, "What exactly did Spike tell you?" Seeing the way her gaze narrowed at the question, he immediately decided it was not a question he wanted to hear the answer to even if Brennan was inclined to give it, and from the look she had just shot him, he didn't think she was. "Look," he sighed, "Just in case you're wondering...this isn't...I wasn't trying to keep it a secret from you. It's not another Helen thing or anything. It's just that—well, I got kinda sidetracked." He thought about the night he lost his soul, and the months afterward that he rampaged in Sunnydale, unfettered by a conscience or any sort of moral restraint. "Things haven't gone exactly as I'd planned."_

_Brennan's forehead crinkled for a minute before she tilted her head. "Ahh, yes," she said sardonically. "Angelus came back for a rare once-in-a-lifetime appearance that I missed although did I hear about it."_

_He ran his tongue along the inside of his lip as he considered the tone of her quip. "Of course, you know that our old friend Spike and his little friend Dru were part of that sidetracking business with Angelus?"_

"_I'm aware," she said. "He filled me in on all of pertinent details."_

"_Huh," Angel grunted. His cheek twitched at the thought of his despised grandchilde. __"I'm surprised the two-faced little fucker didn't try to make a run at you," he said. "He's wanted to take you for a tumble since the night he first saw you back in London. It always chapped his hide that you kept company with me but wouldn't give him the time o' day. Did the little twerp bring you red roses again? Wee Willy was never very imaginative. Stupid little fuck thinks all women like roses and bad poetry. But the dumb ass wouldn't know a real woman if she held him by his scrawny little balls and offered to do all the work for him and—" _

_He hesitated for a moment as he remembered the night, before he was ensouled, how Brennan had strung Angelus up in her sitting room and fondled his aching balls, taking him into her mouth and sucking him nearly to the point of sweet oblivion before backing off, torturing him until he begged her for release. The memory of one of his last turns with her before the Gypsy curse suppressed Angelus for a hundred years, until one night of ecstasy unleashed him again. His lower jaw jutted forward as his anger roiled, his dark eyes smoldering as he continued his rant. _

"_And did the mouthy little prick also happen to tell you what happened to me while I was there in Sunnydale? Because I'm willing to bet a hundred bucks cash on the barrel that the dumb asshole probably left off the important part about losing my soul. Didn't he?" He grunted under his breath but didn't give her time to reply. "That's right. And, then, about five goddamn minutes after I got it back, I got kissed goodbye by someone who I loved and trusted at the time before she pushed me into a portal where I was sucked into hell without her even having the courtesy of telling me what the fuck she was about to do to me?" _

_Brennan's face tightened for a minute and then she looked away from him as she said, "I believe he conveyed those points to me, yes."_

"_You know, then," he said, his simmering anger moderating somewhat as he watched her turn away. He could sense the complex swirl of emotions as she stood there, her shoulders tense and her face turned away from him. _

"_Things in Sunnydale haven't been easy, Bren," he explained with a sadness in his voice. "They haven't been easy or simple. They've been complicated and messy and...and...look, I was an idiot, alright? I should've left long before now, but I didn't_—"

_Watching him as he spoke, when she noticed a familiar look in his eyes, surprise took Brennan. It was a look she had not seen in a long time, and she wondered when it had disappeared, and more importantly why she only noticed its return now. She'd gazed into those eyes countless times over the last 150 years, falling into their warm brown depths so many times as she'd sought out the source of the emotions that shimmered within them. She felt a twittering sensation in her belly and, as he looked back at her, her gut clenched. _

"_Why not?" she asked, interrupting him, desperately needing to understand what was going on with him. "Why didn't you?"_

"_Huh?" he blinked at her, stopping mid-sentence, and clearly caught off-guard by her interruption. "What?"_

_Brennan took a deep breath, choosing her words carefully, some of the strong emotion that had colored her voice seeping away as she struggled to understand. "If things were so bad in Sunnydale," she began. "Then why did you stay as long as you did?" she asked. "I know...the situation with Darla and...well, that happened over two years ago, Angel." _

_She stopped for a beat, her memory flashing back to the long night's conversation she had had with Spike over the events that had happened in Sunnydale during years Angel lived his life without her. Another wave of bitterness bubbled up in Brennan's throat as she thought about how whatever had happened to Angel when he had sex with the Slayer had caused him to forfeit his soul—leaving him soulless but for the third of her soul he held in his custody. _

_She remembered feeling a strangeness that night, a wave of darkness washing over her as her longtime lover stumbled into an alley, the dead heart in his chest clenching as the malevolent demon inside of him tore free from the bonds that had restrained him for a century. It wasn't until Spike told her what had happened, and why, that the resentment inside of her flared into anger. The Slayer was not the only other woman he'd slept with since his ensoulment, she knew—so what was it about sleeping with the Slayer that had been so damn special that he'd lost his soul after just a single night between her legs? She didn't know, but the thought of it sickened her. _

"_And...Angelus?" she finally managed to say when she realized her voice had trailed off as she became lost in her thoughts, and Angel was staring at her expectantly as he wait for her to finish. "That whole thing with him...well, that was almost a year and a half ago," she finally said. Tilting her head, she then added, "If we were having this discussion after that potentially impressive would-be young woman Willow re-ensouled you after Jenny Calendar was murdered—"_

"_Don't," Angel growled, his eyes darkening as he remembered the utter contempt his demonic self had felt for the Gypsy woman and how he'd refused to feed on her. He could hear the sound of Jenny's neck snapping and feel the way her slain body had dangled in his arms as he carried her into Rupert Giles' apartment, setting up roses, champagne and romantic music so that the Watcher would arrive home to find her pale, blue-lipped body arrayed in his bed. "Just...don't..." The memory of his own cruelty—or, rather, the cruelty of which he was capable when the demon inside of him was unshackled from his soul—made his fists clench in guilty anguish, his stomach turning as regret flooded over him. The knowledge of what he was capable of frightened him, especially when he heard the dark murmur Angelus' lewd voice grow louder in the presence of the one person he cared for most, and the one person that Angelus had most wanted to taste but had never been able to savor in that way._

_Brennan's eyes narrowed briefly. "I don't understand," she continued. "Why did it take so long for you to...well...you know." She gave him a pointed look as she watched how his mood had shifted dramatically darker at her mention of the period when Angelus tormented the Slayer and her friends in Sunnydale. She shot him a hard glare. "Don't be obtuse, Angel."_

"_What?" His brow furrowed hard over his eyes. "You mean why did it take me a bit of time to get back on an even kilter even after Buffy found me once I came back from hell?" _

_Brennan nodded slowly by way of her only response to his question as she found her voice had disappeared when Angel had spoken of the Slayer by name for the first time since his arrival. It hurt her more than she thought it would, even though she'd been prepared for it to hurt very, very badly. Thus, she was quite happy when Angel seemed too engrossed with his own thoughts and feelings to notice her discomfort._

_Angel sighed. "Please, Bren." He fussed with the Zippo lighter in his pocket, nibbling the inside of his lip anxiously as he struggled to figure out how to explain what had happened to him. He'd given up smoking, for the most part anyway, decades earlier, but he still carried a lighter in his pocket by sheer force of habit. "I don't—"_

_"Tell me," she pressed him relentlessly. "I want to know...more importantly, I deserve to know. So, tell me why."_

_He leaned his head back and swallowed, knowing full well from the look in her eyes that she wasn't going to let the issue drop no matter how much he would rather not speak of it. "I-I...I wasn't in a good place when I came back, Bren. Something happened there, so that I wasn't..." _

_He hesitated, his pupils pulsing as he blinked, grasping for words. _

"_I was...it's just that...well, having my soul...and, I can't lie...even having a piece of you with me when I went, it was...I'm not sure how to explain it, Bren. But...it was like diving into a shark tank with your pockets full of bait fish."_

_Angel felt a shudder pass through him as the memories—the sights, sounds, smells, tastes and sensations of the horrid place he'd been—inundated him again. He pressed his lips together in a firm line as he tried to gather himself._

_"It was a horrible place, Bren," he continued. "The air, it was full of fearful and anguished voices. The air vibrated with them, really—all these voices in pain, and they'd howl all the time, like a horrible wind that never died down. And the smell? That smell? The smell of fear...it was was everywhere. It permeated everything. Nothing was still. Nothing was even, and nothing was constant, except the fear and the pain and the terrible suffering that colored everything. I don't know how to explain it, Bren...except to say, well...it wasn't a good time. Not at all, not in the slightest. They don't call it hell for nothing." _

"_Okay," she asked__**, **__pressing him as her voice hardened. She knew her normally chatty lover was holding back, but she didn't know why, and it frustrated her. __"So, aside from the obvious_—_because I know going to hell isn't like going on a picnic in the countryside or going to a garden party. But, it would seem as if you're implicating there was more to it than the obvious. So, tell me. I know there's something that I'm missing. So...just say it. What haven't you told me yet? What is it?"_

_Angel looked away and swallowed, sighing and staring at the wall for several long moments before he turned back to face her. "Well, for starters, how about this? Even though I was only gone a few months, I mean...at least to everyone else here on earth...but when I was there? The torture? It went on for over a century, Bren. A century. And during all that time...there was only one constant besides the pain."_

"_What?" she breathed. Something about the way he spoke, whether the deliberate cadence of his speech or the raggedness on the edge of his deep voice, gave each word a gravity that scared her as she waited to hear him say what she already knew to be true in her heart._

"_He tried to get me to give you up, you know," Angel said soberly. He looked down at his feet, then brought his eyes back up again. "He...He thought He'd finally found a way to beat you. He was giddy at the idea of it. He wanted me to betray you, Bren. To help Him destroy you. That's why He came to me the first time, and why He kept coming back to me again and again and again. He swore He'd wait until the end of time if He had to because He wouldn't give up. He said He'd wait however long it took, and He'd keep me there, forever if He had to, until I gave in. He said He had time, you know, and didn't have any other important business except this...except for you. He'd waited for a long time already, so He said waiting a bit more wasn't a big deal. He wanted you, and He said He'd have you. By any means necessary."_

_Although it had been 250 years since he'd last drawn a human breath, Angel felt a distinct tightness in his chest with each word he spoke, as if the words themselves—and the admission they contained—were slowly choking him. For nearly eighty years he'd held a third of her soul inside of him, having sworn to protect it with everything he had and everything he was. His mouth went dry and a hard lump formed in his throat as he confessed how close he'd come to failing her...to breaking his promise to her. He swallowed the hardness in his throat, his nostrils burning with emotion as he summoned up the strength to continue his tale._

"_And that's why He kept coming back to me," he whispered. "Again and again. For a hundred years, Bren."_

"_Who came to you?" she asked, though the gravity in her voice belied her confusion. "Who was it, Angel?"_

_He looked at her for a long moment. Angel had long known the day would come when he would have to tell her about his time in hell, and what had happened to him there, and as he gazed into her deep blue eyes he remembered how he had tried so hard to keep the thought of her eyes at the forefront of his mind through it all. He had imagined that, when the time came to confess to her what had happened, she would have heard his confession with her usual matter-of-factness. But when he looked into her eyes, her objectivity had all but fallen away and he saw something else emerge from behind the veil of her gaze, something he could not in that moment put his finger on. Sympathy? Guilt? He wasn't quite sure._

"_You know," he said, his eyes flashing as he looked at her. "You already know."_

_For the first time since he'd arrived, Brennan truly softened a bit as she asked in a gentle voice that gave away the fear she felt, "Do I?"_

"_Yes," he sighed, the sinews of his chest tightening even further as he heard the fear in her voice. He knew he had to tell her, to lay his cards on the table and come clean about what he'd suffered to protect what she'd given him. A wave of nausea crested in his gut as she stared back at him expectantly. "You do," he said, a part of him hoping he would not have to identify his tormenter by name. "I know you do. Don't you?"_

_She was quiet for a minute and then she said, her voice an anguished croak, "I wish I didn't but...yes, I think I do., even if I don't think I can verbalize it right now."_

"_Fine," he nodded at her. "If you can't say it, then I will. It was The One," he replied. "The One you made your bargain with so many centuries ago. Your very first one, I'm sure you remember. He came to me, you see, because He'd sensed you...or, what I have of you, from almost the very moment that I arrived there. He was so fucking happy, if you can imagine it. It was like He'd thrown a huge party, and I was the surprise guest—the one who showed up unexpectedly and turned his little beer and chips get-together into a full-on, raging New Year's Eve bender to remember for a lifetime—and He dropped everything to focus on me. He wanted..." _

_Angel frowned and shook his head as a reel of painful memories flashed in his mind. He remembered walking through a particularly nasty corner of one of the planes of hell, over a rocky, ruggedly-cobbled terrain, seemingly endless bands of mountain ranges that rose four thousand feet from a sizzling desert floor, the land dotted with bubbling lakes of lava that throbbed and bubbled as he passed by. He scaled these mountains in his bare feet, the soles torn and bruised by the hot, sharp rocks he walked over. His skin, cool to the touch in the real world, burned and blistered from the heat of the swollen red sun that filled the sky overhead. A sulfuric stench of decay refused to leave his nostrils no matter how many times he tried to clear the scent away from his mind. A nearly-constant breeze blew there, a hot, miserable wind that howled with the blood-curdling anguish of the damned. And even when the sound of the wind died down, his ears still hummed with the murmur of His voice, calling out to tempt him. _

"_He wanted it," Angel explained. "The third of your soul, the third I have. He tried so hard at the beginning. At first, He tried to tempt me. He was so amiable and almost jovial at the beginning, you know. That wasn't when it hurt. The hurt...well, that didn't really start until later. But first? He made me all these offers, you know. He was willing to give me anything I wanted...everything, really. There wasn't anything that He didn't try to use to get me to get what He wanted. He tried it all. He told me there wasn't any limit on what He could do. He said He could unwind time so that I'd never met Darla, never been turned, never killed my family. He said He could make me forget everything I'd ever done as Angelus and the guilt that...you know, all of that...it would disappear and I'd never feel it again."_

_He thought about the night he'd met Darla, how she stood in the alley, her lips just inches from his, and how she'd promised to take him places and show him things he never'd seen before. The pain of losing his life in that alley was fleeting, scarcely a memory at all, but the consequences that flowed from her vampire's kiss filled his mind with torment. The taste of his parents' blood, sticky and bitter, and that of his baby sister, Katie—whose blood, like the girl herself, was so sweet and full of her innocence—had coated his tongue the night he came to slaughter them and had never left his consciousness. The One promised to make it all go away, to rid him of the anguish and the memory of the tens of thousands of human lives he'd taken in the hundred and fifty years he'd rampaged through the towns and cities of a terrified Europe. All of his pain, The One promised, could be gone in an instant, itself a rapidly-fading memory, if only he'd give in and give Him what He asked for:_

_Her__... _

_Angel closed his eyes and sighed, deeply ashamed that he'd been weak enough to have felt tempted by the offer._

_He fell silent for a moment and sighed, staring at his hand as it rested on the countertop, and with his eyes followed the web of veins that covered his hand, blinking at the brightly-polished knotwork on the silver ring he wore on his left middle finger before once again bringing his gaze up to meet hers._

"_He even...He even offered to make me human again, and send me back. He said I'd never want for anything. I'd finally have a normal life_—_a wife, children, a home, a job...happiness and love. All of it. He offered me money and power and anything He could think of, but He started to get frustrated when I wouldn't bite. So after awhile, He started to curse me. He started to...He did things. All kinds of things. He filled my mind with ideas that you had lied to me. That you never cared for me. That you used me. That—that you were the one who had sent me to hell, who had...who had betrayed me. He told me these things, and as I was in His house...surrounded by the sights and sounds of His dimension, I couldn't get His voice out of my head. And, you know...it ate away at me."_

_Angel paused for a minute, his eyes opening wide as he studied her. His voice softened, cracking a bit as he spoke. "But...I managed to get through it all because...somehow, I heard you. I heard your voice as it called out from somewhere deep inside of me, telling me that what He was saying to me, the whispers of doubt that gnawed at me from inside my own head, that all of it was a lie. And, so, I didn't give you up, Bren. I kept my promise...just like I said I would. I didn't sell you out. But..." _

_He leaned his head back and swallowed, his Adam's apple dipping as he gulped quietly. Angel remembered how a friend had told him once, 'No good deed goes unpunished.' And in his case, the one truly good thing he'd ever done was to protect her soul, and he'd been punished for it. For ten thousand days, he'd been strapped to the breaking wheel and forced to endure having the long bones of his legs and arms shattered by bludgeons, over and over again, until the pain itself became part of the furniture of his mind. Then another ten thousand days passed on the breaking wheel, but instead of being set upon by iron cudgels, he'd been flayed, the skin torn from his body in sheets, leaving him so raw and exposed that the whispers of his torturers made every nerve ending scream in agony. The pain was so intense that he was constantly teetering on the edge of consciousness, always yanked back from the brink after each fainting spell by being doused with a bucket of salt water. _

_And as his body howled, his mind burned, too. _

'_She wants you to hurt this way,' he was told. 'She's a witch. She gets off on the pain of others. You know that. You've seen it yourself. She loves torturing people. And, even if she didn't want to cause you pain, if you really meant anything to her, don't you think she'd help you? We both know if she wanted to help you, she would, yet here you are.' Over and over again, like a metronome, the seeds of doubt and betrayal were planted in his anguished mind. 'She cares nothing for you,' the voice told him. 'She never has. She never will. It was all an act. She's abandoned you. She left you. You owe her nothing, boy. Save yourself. Leave her to Me. Let her be Mine.' Year after year, decade after decade, for a century, Angel resisted the temptation to give in, holding firm to the one thing he had left:_

_Her__... _

"_But even as I fought back against the lies," he said, "it still...all those lies and the things I saw and heard. There was still a price, Bren. There was still...when I came back, I wasn't the same. I-I...what I heard and saw and felt, even though I knew it wasn't true, it still hurt. It had been so long, so many years. He hadn't been lying when he said he had all the time in the world to wait. A hundred years or more went by. And when I finally got free, I was back in Sunnydale...alive. To a point. But, the thing is..."_

_His voice trailed off again, causing Brennan to prompt him._

"_What?" she asked, her voice a painful plea. "Please...tell me. What else happened?"_

_Angel looked at her, his mouth hanging open as he felt his skin tingling and his gut twisting in his belly. His chocolate brown eyes glimmered with moisture as the memory of his agony seared him, and his nostrils flared as he swore he could smell the sulphur of the roiling lava pools. He closed his eyes as he tried to ignore the sense-memory, then opened them again and gave her a pleading look as he silently begged her for understanding._

"_I went—" he tried, shook his head as his voice got caught in his voice, and he coughed to clear the ball of swollen emotion that had choked his throat closed before he continued. "I think I went mad," he finally managed to tell her. "There was nothing I could do but concentrate on just staying alive. I forgot who I was and what my purpose was. I forgot it all. I was cracked. Wild and feral. I felt like the man I was..." He shook his head. "I felt like I'd been smashed into a hundred thousand pieces, you know. When I came back, there were scars, Bren. There were scars...and I wasn't the same person I was before I left."_

_Brennan narrowed her eyes as she weighed what she'd just been told. The pain she saw in his eyes reminded her of the look he had on his face the moment their eyes first met in the alleyway off Halsted Street in 1923. The drawn expression he wore seemed almost worse, in a way, and she suddenly felt a dark nausea swirl deep in her belly at the knowledge that he'd endured so much suffering for her benefit. The true cost of the bargain they'd made eighty years before had finally come to be paid. After a minute, she asked. "And so you're saying that's why—?"_

_Angel nodded__**, **__his throat tight as if his body itself didn't want to speak of the horrors anymore. "Yes," he told her simply, the single word coming out in a rasp as he found his voice again. "When I got out of there, you know, out of hell, away from all those voices—especially His voice, which wormed its way into my head, Bren, so deep it got to the point I had trouble figuring out which thoughts were mine and which were His—it took me a long time to get my head screwed on right again. And, maybe it seems strange, but I felt like I was banged up, bruised and battered like I'd been in a real knock-down, drag-out fight, except it wasn't my body that hurt, but my mind. And, it took awhile for me, for my mind to heal, I guess, and to get His voice out of my head, and...I wasn't sure what you'd...how to help you understand what had happened and why. I didn't want to burden you with it. And besides it was, well, Buffy found me." _

_He stopped for a beat when he saw Brennan flinch again at his mention of the Slayer's name. "I'm sorry," he said, acknowledging the way the mere mention of his Buffy's name caused such an intense reaction in the woman he'd loved for a century. "But...it's just..."_

_He shook his head and looked away for a moment, gathering his thoughts before he turned back to her and continued._

"_I couldn't...I didn't have a choice," he tried to explain to her. "Bren, you've gotta understand what she did for me. She took care of me, and all I could concentrate on from one day to the next was getting better. So for a while, that's all there was in my life." _

_He fell silent, and recalled the morning he woke up and noticed it—the murmur in the back of his mind and the steady thrumming in his chest. At first, he thought the murmuring voice was that of The One, finally catching up with him again, but then he let his thoughts reach out and listen to the voice. Its timbre, while a little throaty, was clearly that of a female, and as he listened to it, the memories came tumbling back, and he remembered a thousand conversations with the husky-voiced woman who owned that voice. He remembered waking up in a woman's bed, his legs tangled with hers as his fingers caressed a head of dark, auburn hair as that voice spoke to him. Slowly, he remembered her. And once he began to remember her, he began to remember himself. _

"_As time went by," he continued, "The memories came back. I started to remember who I was...and who you were. Eventually, I started to realize that I felt bad that...that this happened, and that I'd been tempted, even though I resisted, and..." _

_Angel blinked a couple of times, his jaw turning rigid as he thought of how the resentment he had once felt at Brennan for being the cause of his suffering paled in comparison to the anger he felt at the Slayer. "And all of it, you know, was because of her...because __she__ sent me there, only to have Him try and use me to get at you."_

_Brennan considered his words, and as she did so, she felt a wave of guilt and pain wash over her. for what seemed like the hundredth time that morning. Still, even as she struggled with her emotion, an image flashed in her mind as she processed the full meaning of what he'd just said...and __who__ he'd just mentioned. His rather seemingly innocent words conjured a vague image that she'd seen a few times in her mind over the last three years. However, just as in the past on each occasion when she'd done so, she'd felt a swirl of negative emotions as the irksomely young visage of a woman with dirty blonde hair and green eyes echoed in her mind. _

_Struggling to stall for enough time to make certain she had a grip on her emotions, she moved to the cupboard to retrieve a dark blue stoneware mug for herself and, dropping a bag of Darjeeling tea into it, set it next to the Northwestern mug he'd picked out for himself. She put both mugs on the side counter next to the stove as she shook her head and said, "Alright."_

_Again, Angel's brow crinkled in confusion at the lone word she'd just spoken. "What?"_

_**S**__he looked at him, some of the pained look in his face having relaxed away as he looked back at her somewhat blankly. "Listen, Angel," she began. "I-I...I'm sorry if you were hurt and suffered because of me. I really am, but_—_" She stopped, biting her lower lip before she sighed. "But, you know...I can't help but think that...while you suffered because of me, you never would've had to endure that if it hadn't been for...well, I didn't send you to hell. I wasn't the one who betrayed you."_

_Angel stared at her and blinked, his brow knit hard over his dark eyes. But he didn't interrupt her as she struggled to explain. _

"_And, now...hearing what you've just told me..." Her voice stopped for a minute before she continued. She stared at the granite countertop and shook her head as she ruminated on the idea that, in the wake of his agonizing experience in hell, he'd sought comfort and healing not from her—despite all the other times she'd tended to him when he needed comfort over the last eighty years—but rather from a naïve, bright-eyed seventeen year-old who knew little of the complexity of the world, or of the man Angel was. "It's times like these that I really wonder, Angel. I-I..."_

"_Wonder about what?" he asked, scratching the back of his head as he watched her close the cabinet roughly. "You know I've never done subtle, Bren. What do you mean?"_

_She nodded lightly to him as she said, "Okay, well. It's just that..." Her voice trailed off before she let out a puff of air and then tried again. "You...me...us...what's happened to us." She shook her head. "I remember a time not all that long ago that I had a pretty damn good idea what you were thinking before you even smiled or frowned or even just looked at me, let alone said the words. But, now...__now__ it's all different. We're different. And, I can't help but wonder if maybe this is my karma."_

"_Bren," he sighed. Angel was sure he'd done the right thing, protecting her soul despite the indescribable suffering he'd endured to do so, but as he listened to her words, it seemed that he'd done something irredeemably and irreversibly wrong. His eyes narrowed and he shot her another puzzled look. "Karma? What are you talking about?"_

"_I've just been thinking," Brennan said, her voice taking on a pained tinge that was very different from the myriad of emotions that she had already voiced during their intense conversation._

"_I just can't help but thinking if maybe this is balance coming back into my life, finally," she said. "I-I...I...you and I. Us. It started out for one reason, and I can't deny it's changed so much from what things once were when we were in London so many years ago. But, the last few years, I'd be lying if I said I can't help...well, you know things have changed between us. I'm not quite sure how or why it happened, but I think it's pretty clear that things aren't the same for us. And, that's had me thinking that maybe...maybe this is how Darla felt when you started to spend time with me." _

"_What?! No!" Angel growled, his jaw tightening at the mention of his sire. "What the hell are you talking about? You've got to be kidding me." He paused for a beat and then shook his head as he continued, "You've got it all wrong, Bren, if you think Darla cared at all back then. She had other men in her bed half the damn time. It wasn't..." He grunted. "It was totally different."_

_Brennan held his intense gaze for a long moment and then she shook her head. "That doesn't matter, and you know it," she told him. "The important part is that you started to change and that change was because of me. It was a gradual, slow type of process. You still saw her, and when you were with her, things were mostly the same...or, at least close enough that she could pretend to convince herself that things were just as they'd always been. But, eventually, you crossed a point of no return with her. And, the fallout from crossing that line culminated in you staking your sire. You loved her once—"_

"_I never loved Darla," he interrupted her. His brow furrowed before he quickly amended, "Or...at least, not really...the way I was, back then, I wasn't able to love anything or anybody but myself. I guess maybe I loved Darla as much as I could've loved anything back then, but that's not really love. It was more like a...wanting." He stopped and then shook his head again, "You know, Bren, it's not the same. You and me? What I feel when I'm with you? When we're together? Those feelings I felt when I was with Darla...it's not like what I know now...because of you."_

_Brennan felt the pain she'd felt gathering in the pit of her stomach since his arrival on her doorstep flash once again, this time threatening to travel from her stomach to her throat where it would lodge itself in a swollen lump if she wasn't careful. Determined not to be weak, she pushed the impulse aside, and concentrated on her earlier train of thought. _

"_We both know that you loved her as much as you were able to back then," Brennan told him. "You can play semantics on what kind of love it was, but it was as close to loving anyone but yourself as you ever did back then, Angel."_

"_Bren—"_

_Shaking her head, Brennan refused to let Angel get a word in edgewise. "Listen to me," she told him. "All of that...well, all that stuff? It's not even the important part. The important part is that when you didn't feel the same way about her as you once did, you killed her. You found someone new."_

"_Bren, that's bullshit," he said, a renewed forcefulness in his voice. "That's bullshit, and more importantly you know it. I killed her because she was killing innocent people..."_

_Brennan rolled her eyes. "Since when is that new?" she snorted with a sharp, biting snarky chuckle. "She was doing as she always had..."_

"_That's not the point," Angel countered. "I went to Sunnydale to keep the hell-beings on their side of the Hellmouth. Darla emerged from the Hellmouth to do the Master's dirty work. She was always at the other end of the strings he pulled, you know, since long before I was ever born. He'd call, crock his rancid fucking little finger, and she'd always come running as quick as I'd ever seen her do anything. So when he took up residence in the caverns underneath Sunnydale like some sort of Hellmouth traffic cop, there she was, trotting along behind him. I had to end her, Bren, and it's got nothing do with you—" _

_Ignoring his comment and cutting him off, Brennan continued. "We both know, back then, I was new and, in some ways, a whole hell of a lot less complicated than Darla. So, if it happened once, it's not really surprising that it's happened again. You found someone new...someone who's younger and without all the baggage that I've got and lets you play the hero. And, now...a part of me can't help but think that maybe...maybe that since you don't feel the same way about me as you once did that eventually will I need to worry about you coming at me with a stake or however else you might try to get rid of me? Will you try to kill me like you did her?" She shook her head again, "I mean...I doubt you'd be able to pull it off because I'm a lot more powerful than she ever was. But...you could still try."_

_He gritted his teeth and shook his head. "This is crazy, Bren," he said, his voice edged a half-octave higher as his frustration quickly mounted. "You're not Darla. What you and I have, what we've done and been and shared...it's a million light years away from what it was between me and Darla. You're...I can't even believe you'd compare yourself to her. Darla never did me any favors, not once, unless she saw something in it for her. And you know what? Before I...before she died, the only thing she wanted was Angelus. She didn't want __me__. She wanted the vicious animal that I'd been at her side. She left me high and dry, more than once, Bren." _

_Angel rolled his shoulder and grunted, shaking out his arms and flexing his hands as he tried to release the tension that the very thought of Darla wrought in him. He looked at Brennan, letting his eyes skim along the outline of her square-jawed face, along the side of her slender neck and down to her shoulder. His gaze paused at the notch at the base of her neck, then he looked up and into her shimmering blue eyes. _

"_Bren," he said. "You...you've never done that. And I've never...I mean, what? Have I ever done anything with the intent to hurt you? In all the years—in all the years, Bren—have I ever done a single thing to hurt you? Because you know what the answer is? I haven't. Never. Not once. And I can't believe you'd...that you can't trust me not to hurt you. After everything we've been through, if I'd wanted to hurt you, Bren, I could've done it a hundred plus different ways before now. Do you even know what was going through my mind when I was Angelus? Or...after? I could've let The One have you, instead of letting Him drag a red hot burning metal rake through my brain every day, turning me inside out that way. I mean, fuck, Bren."_

_Brennan watched, opened her mouth slightly as if she was going to say something, and then promptly closed it._

_He stared at her for a long time and then said, "Going to hell was one thing. Like I said, it wasn't a fun time. But...as painful and as grueling an experience it was to get through, I knew I could do it. You know, that I could get through it somehow. I wasn't ever really tempted by anything that He'd offered me. I can't say the same when I lost my soul. That was...that was...well, you want to know why I had to stay away from you? Because, it was like, suddenly...the man I was was gone all over again, and for four months, it was a blast from the past that wasn't fun in any way, shape, or form. Thing is, even though I'd lost my soul, which unleashed Angelus, I still had yours, and enough of—enough presence of mind, I guess—to know what I was doing and that it was different than what that other me might have done. I was him, but there was still enough of me—or, rather, you—that a part of me was still suffering all that time, even as I was ripping it up and having a grand old time raising hell as Angelus."_

_Angel paused, gazing into her pale eyes as he rolled his jaw from side to side, putting the thoughts together in his mind. He felt a flash of something dark and wanting low in his belly, and he remembered what it felt like to walk the streets of Sunnydale each night unencumbered by conscience, decency, or self-restraint. He recalled the want radiating through him, murmuring in his ears. Every face he saw was an opportunity to satisfy a hunger of one kind or another. Every bared neck he saw was a would-be meal. Every woman he saw was a potential release. But none of them—none of them—stirred in him the throbbing want he'd felt for her._

"_You know what?" he said, his voice taking on a hard edge. "The whole time, when I was him, I kept wanting to come and find you. I could feel you, you know—that third of your soul, pulsing inside of me, the only soul I had at that point—and I could feel myself drawn to you, Bren, like a moth to a flame. All I wanted to do was feed, fuck, and kill...preferably, using you for the first two and doing the last one with you. He thought...or, I did, when I was him, that you'd gone soft over the years. He knew what you were...what you were once capable of, and he wanted to tease it out of you again. So Angelus...me, I wanted to come to you...for you." _

_He hesitated for a moment. He remembered venturing one night to the rundown area on the wrong side of the tracks, near the freeway where he knew there was a string of dingy, dive bars. He went into the bar, his belly growling with hunger, and he saw a woman standing next to the jukebox. She had a long, slender neck, shapely shoulders and a nice, round swell to her hips, but it was when she turned around, and he saw her auburn locks and slate-blue eyes that he knew he had to have her. So he did. He had her—taking the woman, a truckstop prostitute, against a wall in the alley behind the bar before feeding on her and leaving her limp, broken body behind a rusty dumpster—but walked away disgusted that the taste of her blood and the feel of her pussy wasn't anything like the woman he truly craved. _

_Angel blinked away the memory and began to speak again. "He knew it, you know? That he had a part of you, and that he shared me, my body, with that part of you, that part of your soul. He held the reins, controlling my physical body, but couldn't quite control you, that part of you that was inside of me. He wanted to control it, and it pissed him off so fucking badly that he couldn't. He knew that, until he came for you, and brought you back around to his way of seeing things, to the dark side at it were, he wouldn't be able to control that part of me. The __you__ part of me, you know..."_

_Angel shook his head wryly before he continued. "He wanted you," he said. "He wanted you so bad, but he couldn't have you because you were here, out of reach. He was livid. So he went after soft targets. Easy marks. Convenient prey, as it were. Buffy and her friends were an amusement, but no real challenge. He played with them like a cat does its favorite ball of string...just like __you__ used to play with __him_. _He played with them, but it was always you—and the challenge of you—that he really wanted...and never got." _

_He stopped for a moment and then shook his head as he recalled how close Angelus had come to leaving Sunnydale had it not been for the actions of Buffy and her friends. He started to voice his inner monologue before he even realized what he was saying. _

"_You may not realize it," he continued. "But you're lucky that I didn't come to you then. I know, I know. You're gonna say how you could've handled Angelus, but the fact is, you owe Buffy a big thank you. She kept Angelus occupied, so he could stay the hell away from you so that you wouldn't have to see if you could handle him or not."_

_Brennan's eyes widened a bit as she felt the pain she'd experienced earlier turn into a slowly-bubbling indignant rage. She bit the inside of her lip, determined not to let him goad her into unleashing her emotions. Letting out a slow breath, she said in a very measured voice, "I'll be sure to send her a thank you card the next time I think of it, then."_

"_You don't get it," Angel barked__**, **__the muscles of his jaw suddenly tensing as he stared at her. He held her smoldering gaze and met it with his own as he shook his head slowly. He tapped his thumb on the counter and laughed darkly. __"You just don't get it, do you?"_

"_Oh, I get it," Brennan nodded with a grunting laugh of her own. She noted the muscular tension in his face, neck and shoulders, and she remembered seeing that wound-up kind of response in him before when he defended her in an argument with another man. She felt her own growing anger coil tightly in her chest as she wondered when precisely the tables had turned. "I get it quite well, Angel. The Slayer's wonderful. She can do no wrong in the world. She's perfect."_

"_Now, wait," he snapped. "I never said that."_

"_You didn't have to," Brennan countered, her jaw hardening as she thought he was about to launch on another impassioned defense of Buffy Summers. "Which should tell you something, Angel." She paused, shot him a look of clear annoyance and then shook her head. "You know, though? You're a goddamn fool if you don't think I can handle you on any day of the week. Need I remind you, Angel, that I was handling Angelus long before that insipid little twit's great-great grandmother was even born?"_

"_Handling?" he asked with a crooked smirk. "You were always good at handling me, lass. I can't deny that. But you know that's not what...or __who__...I'm talking about here." _

_Glaring at him, Brennan guffawed, "The day I need some peroxidic dullard to do anything for me is the day I'm going to know it's time to finally do myself in because even I have my standards, Angel. So, how about this? How's about if Angelus does manage to get free again because you got weak and gave in and fucked the Slayer again, go all happy—well, if that does happen again, let's see what happens if and when Angelus shows up. Because, somehow, I'm not that worried. I handled him just fine, thank you, more than a century ago, and I've no reason to believe the same isn't true now," she told him with a touch of her old arrogant self-assurance that had always inflamed and infuriated both Angelus and Angel pushing the sadness out of her voice._

_Angel's nostrils flared as his nose filled with the peppery scent of her rising ire. Her blue eyes had darkened to the color of indigo and her apple-shaped cheeks were flushed and rosy with emotion. He felt the hair on his arms stand on end as a tightness coiled low in his belly. He grunted at the faint tugging sensation behind his navel and leveled a rigid stare at her._

"_You have no fucking clue, Bren," he said with a biting anger leeching into his voice. "This is one of those 'be careful what you ask for' situations, Bren. Don't you get that? Because if he ever gets free again, it'll..." Angel's voice trailed off as his eyes narrowed and he felt the darkness pulsing deep inside of him. "It won't be like it was before. The Angelus you knew back then? He was downright domesticated—mellow really—compared with the way he'd be. Like a chained-up junk yard dog all of a sudden let loose in an abattoir. You have no idea, Bren. None whatsoever."_

"_Well, we'll just have to see, I suppose," Brennan said, seemingly dismissing his point with a very casual wave of her hand. "Well," she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "Since all hell broke loose only after you fucked the little teenage twit, I suppose I'm safe for now. Unless you're telling me you've already got another encounter with your underage little bimbo already penciled into your busy social calendar, hmmm?"__ She pursed her lips before she stared at him for another minute and then shook her head before she added, "What's next__**—**__teaching her how to give you a blowjob the way you loved to be sucked off without her suffocating to death from her gag reflex because your dick is too big for her mouth?" She stopped again, then looked away from him and then sighed, "You know what, Angel. I just don't understand you sometime. I don't get is how you say that things are over in Sunnydale in one sentence, and in the next you're singing the Slayer's praises. So, forgive me, Angel. But, I seriously doubt things are over between you two...at least as much as you say they are. The simple fact of the matter is, even if you really wanted them to be over, how can you really know that they are? Can you really know you'll never run into the Slayer again? Because, somehow, I get the distinct impression that if you were in the same room with her for more than sixty seconds, she'd have you ensnared like some goddamn Siren all over again."_

"_You think so?" he growled, taking a couple of steps to close the distance between them. He tilted his head to the side, licked his lips as he inhaled a whiff of her spicy perfume and smirked. His eyes had darkened to the color of molten pitch, and flickered with a cocky laughter as they met hers. Angel could feel her breath on his chin and, noting the way rapid pace of her breathing, his gaze was drawn downward to her chest. Her red spaghetti-strap tank top left little to the imagination, and he felt his groin tighten and his fingertips tingle as he saw the contour of her pert nipples through the thin fabric. __"You think you know what I want? Hmm? Or who I want? Hmmmm?"_

"_I think that the only reason you're here is because you can't, in good conscience without taking a big hit to your pride and huge male ego for whatever reason, be with her right now," Brennan said. "So, yeah, I think you're looking for a way to bide the time."_

"_You're so full of shit, Bren," he snarked. "You really think that, after all this time? Don't be dense. You know what's between us. You can feel it." He took another step closer. "You can feel it, that energy between us. It's always there. You can feel it." He raised his chin with a crooked smirk and lazily raked his hand through his hair. "Yeah, 'cause I sure as fuck can feel it," he said, his voice dropping a half-octave as he drew his tongue along his teeth suggestively. "Come on, Bren. I can smell it, and I know you can, too. Admit it."_

"_What do you want me to admit?" she asked__**, **__wincing faintly as she heard the huskiness in her own voice. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other as she felt a flash of liquid warmth ripple through her. "That you can fuck to pass the time just as easily as doing anything else? Then, sure, okay. No problem. I admit that."_

_Angel's jaw tightened again as he stared at her, his look so pointed it seemed that if it could, it will drill completely through her and break her in two. "That's not what I'm talking about and you fucking know it," he growled. "Come on—don't play games. Not now. You know what this is—what we're talking about here. You and me. Not anyone else, Bren. Just us. So go ahead. Admit it."_

"_What do you want me to admit?" she snapped back. "Hmm? What is it, Angel?"_

"_I want you to admit what we are!" he grunted, tilting his head to the side as his brown eyes burned black as they stared hard into hers. "That what we have, you and me, is bigger, deeper, and better than what either of us is foolish enough to think we can find somewhere else. With someone else. I want you to admit that this is unique, this thing that we have, this thing that we are."_

"_If it's so fucking unique," Brennan growled. "Then, why were you the first one to walk away? If you recall, you were the one who took a detour in the Land of Sunny Seventeen Year-Old Virgins and not me. I waited for you to come back. You didn't."_

"_Why did I walk away?" he asked. "Because you went and had tea and crumpets with Darla. Darla, for fuck's sake! Darla, who fucking left me high and fucking dry in Romania, and then when I went to China to meet up with her again, she dropped me like a fucking hot potato." He snapped his fingers for emphasis. "She washed her hands of me, left me sitting there with the vampire posse on my tail, and you decide to wax all nostalgic about old times and sit down for tea with her, chit-chatting about me? After everything she did to me. After she betrayed me. You know she betrayed me. You said so yourself. We talked about it that first night in Chicago. For fuck's sake, Bren."_

"_Fuck, Angel!" she yelled. "We argued. It was stupid goddamn fight. That's all it was...over Darla of all people. You overreacted, tossed me out of your place, and slammed the door shut without a backward glance before I even had a chance to explain what was really going on and why I agreed to meet with her in the first place."_

_Angel was just about ready to unleash a sarcastic retort when he suddenly hesitated. His dark, heavy brows knit low over his deep-set eyes as her words percolated through the layers of his mind and his mouth fell open in awkward surprise. His forehead creased as he glanced to the side in confusion. He felt foolish as he realized that he, in fact, had no real idea what Brennan and his sire had discussed when they'd met. As soon as he'd heard that his lover had invited Darla over for tea on the latter's visit to Chicago, he flew into a rage so intense that he had never bothered to ask or listen for details before shoving her out the door and slamming it behind her. _

"_Then, adding insult to injury, you spent three months brooding, ignoring every call, letter, and email I sent you. And, then, when you were done pouting, you went and shacked up with the first wide-eyed teenage ingenue that you bumped into. So you tell me...what exactly was I supposed to do with that? Sit here, twiddling my thumbs in Chicago, waiting for you to fuck...what was that great name that Spike had for her?" Brennan snapped her fingers. "Oh, yeah. Slutty the Vampire Slayer. That was it. You wanted me to wait for you to fuck Slutty the Vampire Slayer out of your system? Well, I'm sorry. But, that wasn't going to happen. No man gets to treat me that way, not even you." _

_Angel's lower jaw shifted forward as he felt the muscles of his face and jaw tighten like a vise around his temples. Brennan watched his reaction as the corners of her lips curved upwards in quiet satisfaction._

"_You aren't that important, Angel," she said. "You never were and never will be."_

_For several long seconds, he stared at her, his nostrils flaring as his dark eyes smoldered in fury. "You __know__ that's not true," he said, pounding his fist on the countertop. "You know it, and I know it. No matter what happens, Bren, no matter who walks through our lives, hmmm? If we've learned anything, it's that we can't walk away. Sure, I learned the hard way." He pressed his lips in a firm line, cocking his head to the side as he grinned faintly and licked his lips. "I learned my lesson. And I think you did, too."_

"_Don't do that," Brennan snapped, stepping away from him as she glared at him. "Don't you fucking dare do that. You know I hate it when you do that."_

"_What?" he asked her, taking another half-step towards her._

_Pointing at him with her index finger, she gestured as she said, "That thing you do. That thing you've always done where you try to turn this around on me and make me distracted so that I let the point drop. Well, it won't work this time. Because I've changed, Angel, and that little thing you do won't work with me anymore. We won't be conveniently glossing over the fact that you left me for her. Voluntarily. Without a second goddamn thought. And, we both know you'd do it again in a heartbeat if you had the chance."_

"_That's bullshit," he hissed. "Fucking utter bullshit, and you know it. And you think I don't know you? You think you've changed? Bullshit. I've known you for almost 150 years. After all that time, I know you almost as well as you know yourself." He grunted out a laugh. "Never mind that I've been carrying a part of you around with me for the better part of a century. So come on, Bren..."_

"_You're the one who's full of shit, Angel," she bit back. "I thought I knew you, I really did. I thought you were a man of a certain sophistication, but after hearing how you ran off with that teenage flake out there in Sunnydale, I was clearly wrong. You're no different than the rest of them."_

"_You don't know what the fuck you're talking about, Bren. I didn't leave you for anyone." He shook his head with a huff. "You know I'm not like the rest of them, and you know what we have isn't—" _

"_Oh, no," she hissed, cutting him off. "Who in the hell do you think you are to—"_

"_Look," he said with a sigh, cutting her off as he lifted his hand to her face but hesitating for several seconds before touching her jaw with his fingers. It was the first time that he'd touched her after over a century in hell, and his hand shook slightly as he savored the softness of her skin and the way touching her made him feel._

_She sensed his hesitation—even if she didn't know what had caused it—and then batted his hand away from her. "Don't touch me," she warned him. "You don't get to touch me."_

"_You never stopped me before," he said, greedy for the opportunity to touch her again as his hand hovered near her skin. "Well, there was that one time, but after that, you never stopped me from touching you." Angel narrowed his eyes. "You like it when I touch you. Actually, you __love__ it when I touch you. You always have. From that very first night. You know it. I know it. You know that I know that you know it, so cut it out, Bren. You're pissed, okay? I get it. But don't bullshit me with this 'don't touch me' crap. I know you want me to touch you. I can feel it, the way your body's humming for me. The way you smell when you're turned on. You want me to touch you."_

"_I'm not taking a teenager's sloppy seconds, Angel," she hissed at him. "You may not have any self-respect left, but I do."_

_His brow sank hard over his dark eyes as his jaw turned rigid. "What do you want me to say, Bren, hmmm?" he snarled. "That I made a mistake? Or do you want me to admit I loved her? What do you want to hear? Because the bottom fucking line is, both are true. I loved her, but she betrayed me, and I realized that the trust I placed in her was a huge mistake. We aren't supposed to be together, her and I, and probably weren't ever meant to be. I was the one who left her, and you know what? If I had it to do all over again I'd make the __exact__ same choice. So how's that, huh? Or do you want me to tell you what she was like, and that you were always better than her? Because that's true, too." _

_He paused, then shrugged to himself as his nostrils flared as he inhaled the spicy scent of Brennan's anger. _

"_She wasn't terribly original, really," he said. "Not when she was happy, and certainly not when she was pissed. I mean, she did throw me off a balcony once, just like you did. Not as gracefully as you did, actually, but she did manage to do it. And then there was a time or two when she trussed me up in chains." He paused, then held the tip of his tongue between his lips as his eyes skimmed over the contours of Brennan's tense, angry features. He felt a hard tugging in the pit of his belly and a tingle in his fingertips as he desperately yearned to touch her and to feel her touch him. "But that never turned out to be any fun. I mean, at least when you strung me up I knew that we'd end up fucking at some point. But you're right. She was...she was never able to match me. It was always an unequal relationship. She was never like you. Never as good as you. Nothing about her ever was. How she felt? When we were together? It wasn't the same."_

"_Of course it wasn't the same," Brennan snapped. "I've been around the block a few more times than she has. But then again, there's nothing quite like breaking them in for the first time, is there, Angel?"_

_His eyes widened, and then narrowed again as he felt the taste of bile rise in his throat at the insinuation. Angel swallowed, and he realized some of the sourness in his throat was not just the taste of his own response, but a twinge of hurt behind the strong scent of her anger. "Wait, you think that's what that was?" he snarled, his nostrils flaring as his eyes caught the bright flash behind hers. "You think I went after her because she was a virgin?"_

"_True, she wasn't a nun," she volleyed back. "But, close enough in this day and age, right? Untouched, untainted...you could corrupt her. Isn't that what it always was about?"_

"_Huh," Angel grunted, leaning in close to her, rolling his shoulder back and raising his chin as he tried to shake off the pulse of desire he felt crackle at the base of his spine. He blinked, realizing in that moment that her rising anger was as arousing sexually as it was emotionally. "First off," he said with a swallow. "It was never really about the sex, you know, for Angelus—the thing with the nuns. It was about pushing people over the fucking edge so far they'd never find themselves again, then snuffing them out once they'd realized how far they'd gone. He always got off on that—at least, he did before he met you. After he met you, there was no convent or nun in the world that excited him the way you did." __He paused, then shook his head as he blinked away a memory. "But enough about that, alright? Shit."_

"_You're right," she said. "Let's talk about you. Talk about you and the oh-so-special Slayer that you've spent more than three years panting after."_

"_Panting after?" He shook his head, then sighed, closing his eyes for a second as he tried to ignore the vague tightness that was starting to get more and more powerful in his groin. "Look, she __was__ special to me," he finally admitted. "You know that. I wouldn't have lost my soul if she wasn't." _

_Rolling her eyes as she attempted use her display of mockery to keep her anger in check, Brennan said, "Right. And, let me guess. This is the part where you tell me how fucking good she was...how good she tasted?"_

_His eyes skated down from Brennan's face to the shimmering ivory skin of her neck. "Yeah, I tasted her," he confessed, unsure as soon as the words left his mouth why he'd said it. His nostrils flared as he saw her eyes narrow at hearing his admission, and in a second wave of impulse, he opened his mouth again to speak. "But it's not what you think."_

"_How stupid do you think I am, Angel?" she asked. "I'm pretty sure it's exactly what I think."_

_Angel shrugged. "No, it wasn't like that," he said. "With her, it was plain-vanilla. We had sex, okay, but it wasn't fucking. There was no fire, no heat, no electricity." He thought back to the cold, rainy night he made love to Buffy in his dimly-lit apartment. "I held back. I had to, you know. But when it was over, I still felt...I dunno...unfulfilled. I came, of course, but...it wasn't enough."_

_Brennan rolled her eyes. "Well, isn't that a pity," she snorted. "You lose your soul over a mediocre fuck? How tragic." Her eyes then flashed and then said, "I suppose the stupid twit probably hadn't even gotten herself off before you went to town on her right? Was it a magic moment, Angel? Was that it? Did you get her to come for her first time in addition to being the first stiff dick to ram it inside her? Spike said she's always quite mouthy. So, tell me...did that, at least, shut her up when you were going down on her? I know you're just dying to tell me." _

_He felt her jealous rage rolling off of her in waves, but he knew silence would not mollify her. "It wasn't like that," he said again, his discomfort making his chest painfully tight._

"_The fuck it wasn't," she sneered._

"_I fed on her," he blurted out. "I drank from her. She was...it was...it was, well...it's the type of experience that's hard to describe."_

"_Lucky for me, I'm certain you're having a fucking good time trying," Brennan snarled. "Jesus, Angel. After all the shit you've given me over the years...you __fed__ on her? You trusted her enough that you did that? How often? Was it every time you fucked her after you popped her cherry? Was that some type of kink she got off on? Was that it?" _

"_No," he snapped back. "It wasn't that. It wasn't...fuck, it wasn't like that at all. Get a grip, Bren. Damn it." _

_The muscles in Brennan's face were so rigid as she glared at him, her cheek twitched. _

_Angel felt the heat as her anger and tension radiated off of her. "I was hurt, alright?" he said, his voice low and vaguely uneven as he struggled to explain. "Okay? I'd been poisoned. It was...less than two weeks ago, Bren. There was an arrow that I got hit with that was coated in some kind of...I don't know, a poison. And I was dying, for fuck's sake. The only cure was if I drank from a Slayer. I needed her blood to heal. And even then, I didn't want to do it. I refused. That—feeding like that—was something I've never wanted from her. I flat out refused to do it. 'Get away,' I told her. She had to hit me with three fucking painful right hooks square in the jaw before she got me to do what she wanted. So I fed on her. Not because I wanted to, b ut because I had to. But that was it. It...it wasn't about sex...not at all."_

_Brennan heard something in his voice, a hesitation, and as the hair on the back of her neck stood on end, her eyes narrowed to slits and she pounced. "So," she said with venom dripping from her voice. "You're going to tell me that she sat in a chair in her Sunday best with her legs crossed and let you take a drink from her?" _

_Angel blinked as he remembered the night he fed on the Slayer. A second after he blinked, he saw a bright flash in Brennan's blue eyes, and he knew he was a goner. "No," he sighed. "It wasn't...she was...she had a tank top on...a plain black one, I think. But why are you—?"_

"_What were you wearing, Angel?" she hissed, unable to shake from her mind the image of him, his naked body glistening with sweat, tucked between the adolescent Slayer's slender thighs, his back arched as he drank from her. She had to know if the image in her mind was accurate. "Tell me."_

"_Bren," he said, his voice low and raw as he pleaded with her as some of the anger he'd felt earlier dissipated. "Please. Don't do this. It's not—"_

"_Tell me," she demanded again, the raw anger and hostility and resentment she was feeling bubbling up and flowing through her as she glared at him. "Tell me now."_

_Angel swallowed heavily and then said, "Fine. You wanna know? Fine. Then, I'll tell you everything. I'd been in bed, Bren, sweating like a fiend as the poison worked its way through my body. I-I..."_

"_Were you naked?" she asked evenly as she stared at him, cutting him off again so she could learn the details she really wanted to know about his most recent encounter with the Slayer. "Were you?"_

"_No," he whispered. "I wasn't. I had pants on." He stared back at her, his mouth hanging open as he waited for her to press him for all the details, as he knew she would._

_Brennan's jaw hardened as she asked, "Did you take her on your bed? Is that where you started to fuck her? Was that when it happened? Did you feed on her in your bed?"_

"_No," Angel answered. "She wanted me to do it there—feed on her, not fuck her, Bren—but I said no. I didn't want to feed on her at all, so I got up and went into the other room. I could barely walk, the poison had so weakened me, and—"_

"_Where did you do it, then?" she asked, leveling a hard, piercing stare at him as the fury roiled inside of her. "Tell me, Angel. Where?"_

_Closing his eyes for several moments, he remembered how Buffy's third hard punch had nearly knocked him over, and how when he'd turned to face her again, the demon inside of him had torn away the veil of his humanity. He'd faced her with a lips curled back in hungry rage, a twisted brow and yellow eyes that flashed in the half-light of the room. He winced and explained, "I bit her—standing up, but we fell to the ground, and I drank from her. On the floor. In front of the fireplace."_

"_In front of the fireplace?" Brennan laughed. "You have quite a penchant for fucking in front of fireplaces, don't you? Is that where you took her the first time you fucked her? Did you—"_

"_No, wait," he said, throwing his hands up and cutting her off before she could launch into a full-on rant. " Listen, okay?" __He swallowed again, knowing he could never hide the truth from her, even if he'd wanted to. He thought of how he'd covered Buffy's body with his, his hips cradled between her thighs, as he surrendered himself to his body's thirst. _

"_I fell on her...I-I collapsed on top of her, and I drank from her," Angel explained. "But you've gotta understand, Bren, I was desperate, acting on pure instinct—I was dying, and once I started drinking...I drank a lot. I just couldn't stop. She tasted so good, so sweet, that Slayer's blood of hers. I just needed more...all she had to give. And so I kept sucking, so much, that when I was done..." He closed his eyes and remembered how he'd rolled off of her and onto his back, his lips wet with her blood as he felt her life-force dampening the killing effects of the poison. "I nearly killed her," he said miserably. "She'd lost consciousness, and her pulse was very weak. I had to take her to the hospital." He pursed his lips, then added, "I couldn't let her die, Bren—I couldn't. She saved my life. And that was the only thing that made me eventually pull away and get myself together long enough to get her to the ER. She saved me, and then I saved her. It was the right thing to do, Bren. I didn't want to owe her. I wanted to be free."_

_Brennan groaned at Angel's words. "Well, isn't that nice?" she sneered eventually, her fists clenched tight at her sides, obviously resentful and hurting because of what Angel had just said. "The self-sacrificing heroine swoops in to save the life of the dark, brooding, dying vampire who took her maidenhood and—"_

_Angel shook his head and raised his hand in objection. "Now wait just a goddamn minute," he said. "That's not how it was..." He let his hand drop and looked away. "It was never sexual."_

"_Bullshit," she snorted. "You drank from her. How can you __dare__ tell that that's not sexual after all the times you've sucked and fucked me?" She stared at him, her cool eyes burning with jealous anger. "And all the times you've enjoyed it." _

"_Because it wasn't like that," he grunted, interrupting her. "It wasn't sexual, Bren..."_

_Brennan's pale eyes flashed bright as her square jaw hardened. "You said you were laying on top of her," she growled, the image she had in her mind of the two of them so clear that she almost swore she'd been there herself. "Your hips between her legs, I imagine. Hmmm? Am I wrong? When you leaned over as you would have had to, logistically, to drink from her, you covered her body with yours. Isn't that so?"_

_Angel turned away, biting down on the inside of his lip as he closed his eyes, remembering the way it had felt to feed on his the Slayer. "Yes," he sighed, then brought his dark gaze, faintly glassy with a frustrated sadness, back again to meet hers. _

"_Was she wearing a bra?" she asked, her lip curling as she could see in the way his eyelid twitched that the unspoken answer to her question was 'no.' Undaunted, and emboldened by the momentum of her anger, she pressed on. "Tell me," she said, a sneer cutting the edge of her firm voice. "Were you grinding against her, your hips against hers as you dragged your bare chest over her breasts? Could you feel her hard nipples through her thin tank top as you moved on top of her? Tell me, Angel. Tell me."_

"_Yes," he whispered, pained as he answered her question. "Yes, dammit—"_

"_Right." Brennan cocked her head to the side and she leaned her weight into one hip, adopting an aggressive stance that oozed defiance and skepticism. "How about that, huh? I was right. Just like I knew I would be." _

_Angel looked away, his eyes scanning the apartment behind him before his gaze settled on the brick fireplace on the opposite side of her living room, and he remembered vaguely the way the fire in his fireplace had warmed his skin while he drank from the Slayer. After a moment, he thought back to another night, a hundred and forty years earlier, when he found himself between the legs of another woman in front of a roaring fire—the night he first came together with Brennan. _

"_You can say what you want, Angel," she said, "but if that doesn't sound like a prelude to fucking then I don't know what does. So, don't give me this crap about how it wasn't sexual, Angel. I'm not a fucking idiot. So tell me...did you slide your hands under her top?"_

_He blinked back at her, his mouth gaping open as he remembered how it was when he'd fed on the Slayer, and how one hand held her down as the other was pressed against the concrete floor, propping him up as he drank. "No," he said, his voice suddenly low and measured. "She fell down and then she was laying on the floor where she'd fallen, except that I'd fallen on top of her, more or less."_

_Brennan's brow furrowed. "More or less?" she huffed. "What the fuck does that mean, Angel? Did you or didn't you lay on top of her, hmmm?" Her chest heaved with each breath as she looked at him, demanding an answer with her withering stare._

_Angel's smoldering eyes narrowed, and he raised his chin defiantly. "Yes," he hissed. "I did. I bit her neck as we were standing there, but I was so weak from the poison and the way it hit me, I guess, all at once, tasting human blood again after going so long without, and Slayer blood at that...it's got a texture that's kind of...well, I can't really explain the sensation of it—"_

_Brennan raised her hand in front of her face as she took a step back with an exasperated sigh._

"_Don't bother," she said. "I don't want to hear about the intoxicating taste of her Slayer's blood..."_

_He growled and his dark eyes flickered bright with a flash of anger. "You asked, lass," he said, taking another step towards her as his voice sank a full octave, his long-faded brogue revealing itself once more on the raw edges of his speech. "You fuckin' asked, and now you get to fuckin' listen whether it makes you feel more jealous or not. So, yeah—I fell on top of her, my body covered hers as my fangs sank deep into her throat, and I drank. I __drank__. I didn't fuck her. I didn't grope her. I didn't grab her tits. I didn't rub her off. I didn't touch her sexually. I held her down on the floor and, with my teeth sunk into her jugular, I sucked her damn near dry." His nostrils flared wide as his eyes locked hard with hers. "I drank from her and with every swallow, I felt myself pullin' back from the edge of death. She saved my life, forcin' me to drink from her that way. Would you have preferred she let me die?" He clenched his jaw hard. "Would you rather have seen me dead? Would you?"_

_A thin, almost imperceptible fissure cracked the facade of Brennan's angry indifference. She blinked, but said nothing in the brief pause before Angel began to speak again. His brow furrowed hard over his eyes. "She saved my fuckin' life, Bren," he said, biting each word as he spoke, a certain lilt to the cadence of his words as his long-faded Galway brogue returned to him in his passion. "You gotta give her credit. She was willin' to give up her life to save me."_

"_You bastard," she spat at him, her fury blazing again. "You have the audacity to come into my home in the middle of the night, make a pass at me, and when I brush you off, regale me with tales of your new blonde true-love fuck buddy in Sunnydale, and then tell me that I need to get a grip?" Brennan propped her hands on her hips and leveled a cold, hard stare at her longtime lover. She shook her head as she gnashed her teeth. "Well, you know what, Angel?," she hissed. "Fuck you and the huge ego that you walked in with. Fuck. You."_

"_Fuck me?" he snorted. _

_His eyes skated up and down her body, taking note of every curve and swell that her skimpy sleep shorts and thin, snug-fitting tank top revealed. Each heaving breath she took made her breasts sway just enough that the movement caught his eye. Angel's eyes were drawn to the cleft between her breasts, and how the space between them glistened with sweat, a tiny droplet of perspiration clinging to her skin before finally being shaken loose by a falling breath. _

"_Fuck __you__, Bren," he said. "Fuck you and all your goddamn insecurities. You know, for someone who's damn near five hundred fuckin' years old, you'd think you'd be a bit more circumspect about these things and not go to fuckin' pieces, getting threatened by a seventeen year-old. Who, by the way, I've already admitted was a big fuckin' mistake. She was never as good as you...the way you taste, the way you feel. I tasted her less than ten days ago, and you'd think all I'd be able to remember was the taste and smell of her. But you know what? Even though it's been years since I tasted you? That's all I can think about, that's all I can remember. You. Just you. The way you feel and the way your blood tastes on my tongue. You were always better, Bren, in everything—so why are you so insecure about this, after everything I've told you? Why, huh?"_

"_That's it," Brennan snapped, turning around so that she was completely facing him. She extended the palms of both hands and shoved him hard away from her, pushing him towards the door. "We're done here. And, you're leaving now."_

"_No way," he said firmly, placing his hands on his hips as he shook his head with a cocky, narrow-eyed grin. "I'm not going anywhere."_

"_Want to bet?" she told him._

"_What are you gonna do, lass?" he asked, his forehead creasing deeply as he rolled his eyes and laughed. "Throw me over the balcony again? Nah, that's no fun. Been there, done that, right? So what, maybe you wanna tie me up, just for old time's sake?"_

"_No," she said curtly. "I just want you gone. And, in about ten seconds after I say the magic four words, we both know there's nothing you can do about it."_

_Angel narrowed his eyes once more. "Nope," he said simply, then cocked his head with a grin as he took a firm step forward and closed the space between them again, bringing his big hands to rest on her hips, closing his fingers around her waist as his eyes darted down to look at the way her scoop-necked camisole revealed the sweat-damp cleft between her breasts. He grunted quietly as he felt the tugging low in his gut, behind his navel, become sharper and more painful as his body began to harden as he felt how her possessive anger had made her body rigid, taut beneath its curves._

"_I mean it, Angel," she growled at him. "It may've been a while since you weren't trying to fuck a docile, dimwitted airhead who bought into that whole knight-in-shining-armor brooding thing you do so very well. But, I'm telling you now. Take your goddamn hands off of me or you're going to recall going off of my balcony as a pleasant memory by the time I'm done with you."_

_A faint smile flashed across his lips as he squeezed her hips in his hands and leaned in, brushing his lips across her chin. "No."_

_She twisted against his grasp, trying to get away from him, but he held firm. "You don't get to have me," she told him._

"_I've always had you," he said, leaning in again as his lips hovered just fractions of an inch from hers. "Always."_

"_No," she contradicted him. "No. You're wrong."_

_Shaking his head as he gave her a sly smile. "Never," he told her. "I want you."_

"_No," she repeated. "Go back to the fucking Slayer if you want to get laid," Brennan snarled. "I don't want you. Go back to her. You said it yourself. You've both fucked her and fed on her. What more do you want?"_

"_You," he growled, his mouth gaping open as he pressed his fingertips hard into her flesh. He took a whiff and filled his nose with the smell of her sweet, spicy sweat and the musky scent of her mounting arousal, and he felt the silky smoothness of her skin warm his hands as he squeezed her hips. His eyes drank in the sight of her chest rolling with every breath, a bead of sweat dribbling along the right side of her neck and coming to rest on her collarbone. "I want you. Only you." _

"_Too bad," she muttered at him. "The price you'd have to pay to get that back is something we both know you're not willing to put up, Angel. So...__Let__. __Me__. __Go__."_

"_Price?" he laughed, not being able to believe what she was actually saying and reveling in the way she felt in his arms as she struggled in his grasp. He held her tighter as he continued, "I've already paid the price, lass. Again and fucking again. Most recently, for over a century, remember? So, no, I'm not letting you go and, yeah, not only do I want you, but I'm gonna have you, too. Again...and again...and again."_

"_I told you...no," she muttered as she again struggled against him. Brennan wanted him with every fiber of her being, and a part of her hated herself for giving into her own weakness. Despite her anger, she wanted him, and she loathed herself for it despite the promise that she had long ago made to herself that she wouldn't ever take the Slayer's sloppy seconds after the night she talked to Spike made it clear that Angel had embarked on a passionate affair with a certain blonde teenager in Sunnydale. She had promised herself that she would never give in to her want of him as long as she was convinced there was even the slightest chance she might lose him again to Buffy Summers. Yet, here they were, and despite remaining unconvinced, she knew she was within an inch of giving into him and her unquenchable thirst for him. "What part of that don't you understand?"_

"_The part of you that tells me that what you're saying and what you really want are two totally fucking different things, woman." He stared hard into her eyes__**,**__ and behind the cold fire of her rage, he saw something else—a hairline crack in her resolve, which fracture seemed to reveal a fleeting glimpse of the familiar want that she'd shown him over the many years he'd known her_―_the want that had always been the starting point between them as it had always led to other things. Angel knew he needed to tread carefully, but the familiar glimpse gave him hope that he could make something more than verbal sparring happen between them this night so they could move forward together. _

"_What price do you want, huh? Tell me. What do you want, mmm?"_

_She narrowed her eyes and stared at him for several seconds. "You said you fed on her when you were injured," she said evenly._

"_I did," he said firmly. "That's what I did."_

"_So, you're saying you never fed on her when you were fucking her?" she asked. holding his intense gaze. "Is that what you're telling me?"_

_Angel tilted his head to the side and then replied, "Yeah. That's exactly what I'm saying."_

"_Why?" she questioned him sharply. "Why not? Afraid of letting the demon out of his cage long enough to make her come, Angel? Was that it? Were you afraid she couldn't handle it...handle you?"_

_For several long moments, he said nothing, and as each second passed, the angry gleam in her eyes flashed brighter. Finally, he said, "I never shared that with her," he said. "I never bared myself that way for her. She never earned the right to see all of me, that way, the way you have. The darkness that's..." He paused and then looked away as he shook his head. "But we both know that's the last thing either one of us needs right now, Bren. It's not happening."_

"_What?" she said. "Don't tell me. Are you saving it for the Slayer, Angel? Is that why you won't give it to me?"_

"_No," he insisted with a frown. "That's not it at all, Bren. I just—" _

"_Then, you're going," Brennan retorted instantly. "Because you want to know what my price is? That's it. Prove it. Prove you know and care about me differently than you do her. Prove it. Or get out."_

"_Bren," he murmured__**,**__ still somewhat shaken by how close he'd come to killing the Slayer after feeding on her, and uncomfortable with Brennan using his willingness to feed as a sign of his bona fides., afraid he might do the same thing to her and terrified at the possibility. "I really don't...this isn't...look, I-I..."_

_She leveled a hard gaze at him, her eyes a dark indigo-gray, the color of blued steel, as she began to mutter, "Fine. Then, you're going," she repeated. "And, I'm quite happy to use my powers to do it. A spell isn't always strange words and incantations. Sometimes, it can be very simple, Angel. Just four little words. I rescind—"_

"_No!" he shouted, reaching out and grabbing her arm. He pulled her towards him with a hard yank until their foreheads were almost touching. "Don't," he warned her._

_Pursing her lips, she dared him, "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't."_

"_Because," he answered her. "If you get rid of me, then you won't get what you say you really want. Remember? You just said you want to see the darkness in me, Bren? Is that what you want? You want me to take you with all of the darkness I have in me? Is that what you really want?"_

"_I'm not afraid of the darkness—or the demon, Angel," she countered. "I never was and never will be. And, I think you've forgotten that. I've seen both of them before, remember? Up close and personal. On more than one occasion."_

"_I've forgotten nothing," he growled, leaning in closer to her. "I remember everything. Everything."_

"_Every time," she retorted sharply. "Every fucking time, Angel, I've matched you. For a damn century and a half, I've matched you step for step, move for move, beat for beat. I'm not some goddamn teenage twit. So, either give me what I'm due or get the fuck out of my home."_

"_I'll give you what you're due," he grunted, pressing his fingers into her arm hard enough it would leave bruises. He felt his mouth water at the thought of coating his tongue with her blood again as he realized he'd already decided he was going to agree to her terms. "I haven't tasted human blood since Angelus got loose," he said. "So be careful what you wish for, lass, because you might just get it."_

"_I told you," she nodded at him. "I'm not scared of the demon, Angel. Besides, it's not like I haven't purged your palate with my blood before," Brennan said with a lopsided grin and a hint of laughter in her voice. "After all of the meals you took as Angelus, I think you need this as badly as I do. Difference is, I'm willing to admit it, Angel." She arched an eyebrow and said, "So, I ask you again—are you going to give me what I'm due?" _

_Angel felt a warmth spread through his belly as a prickly heat bit at his skin and a raw shiver rolled up his spine. A lusty grin flashed across his lips as he flexed his fingers and squeezed her arm again, pulling her body flush against his so he could feel her breasts pressing against his chest. "Yeah, I'll give it to you," he said with a low, throaty laugh. "God, I want you," he growled. "Always have."_

_His nostrils flared as they filled with the smell of her sweat, and he felt the field of his vision suddenly narrow as his brow thickened and sunk low over his eyes, his lips burning slightly as his mouth tingled and his teeth ached for a moment before his grin transformed into a jagged-toothed, sharp-fanged snarl. _

"_I'll give you proof," he said, letting his tongue slide over his fangs as he lowered his head to her neck and, hesitating only for a fraction of a second as he felt her pulse vibrate against his lower lip, opened his mouth wide before sinking his fangs into the silky skin of her neck._

_He came at her hard and fast—and he almost got away with it._

_Brennan shuddered against him, letting her hair fall away from the crook on the right side of her neck as she tilted her head away from him. In sixty years, since the very first night she bared her neck to him, he'd always fed in the same two places_―_the right side of her neck, or the creamy swell of her left leg's inner thigh. As she felt his teeth pierce her skin, her knees wobbled a bit. It wasn't because it was an unpleasant or even unfamiliar sensation, but she did start to feel a bit lightheaded as he began to drink from her in a more ruthless and more desperate way then she could ever remember him having done before. After a minute, as he continued to drink from her greedily, she felt the lightheadedness transition to a strong wave of dizziness._

"_Angel," she breathed, offering him a soft warning that she'd never had to give him before, and a small part of her mind that was still not subsumed by the throbbing want between her legs found it curious that such a warning appeared to be necessary. "Go easy..."_

_After a minute, it was very clear that he hadn't heard a word she'd said as he pressed his weight harder against her and sank his fangs deeper into her neck, slurping loudly as he drank._

"_Angel_―_" she repeated, this time another different type of edge coming into her voice. "Slow down."_

_Again, he disregarded her words and continued to drink. When she felt her heartbeat begin to grow faint, Brennan didn't wait or give him a third chance to ignore her._

_Her eyes snapped open, pulsing with the tell-tale sign of her powers. She twisted away slightly at the same time a small but concentrated pulse of blue energy leapt from her body and flew towards Angel, parting the two of them. Angel slammed hard against the stainless steel door of her refrigerator, hitting it with a hard thud. His head snapped up, his bright yellow eyes meeting hers with a predatory glare. Brennan leveled her own hard stare at him, the irises of her eyes completed blocked out as electric blue orbs stared down his bright yellow gaze. _

"_I told you," she said, her voice confident and measured as she stalked toward him. "We're equals, Angel. Give and take."_

"_I...can't...help...it," he groaned as he struggled to come up with an explanation for her. "I-I...I need you," he told her lamely. "Bren, God, I-I need to taste you. To touch you. I want you...so fucking badly. Please."_

"_Mmmmm," Brennan answered. "All well and good. But, despite what you said earlier, it seems as if you've forgotten that we're only equals because I give what I want to you and let you take the rest." _

_She tilted her head as she raised a hand and a stainless steel knife flew into it as if a web of blue electricity had drawn it to her. She then pounced, slamming his back against the refrigerator, growling as she brandished the knife and quickly shredded the shirt he was wearing. She tossed the knife on the far counter with a loud metallic _clack _echoed in the air and ran her hands over his naked chest. Using her knee to part his legs, she allowed herself to straddle one thigh as she settled herself against his outthrust knee. When she was satisfied with her positioning, she quickly gathered the hem of her camisole in both hands, tugged it over her head, and tossed it on the ground behind her. She saw Angel's tongue loll at the corner of his mouth as his eyes fell to her tits, her dusky nipples already taut, although they tightened a bit more as she saw him stare at them. _

"_Now...come here," she demanded, her voice reduced to a throaty growl. "You want to touch me, taste me, want me? Then, fine. Do it. I want you, too. Because we're most definitely not done here yet."_

_Angel snarled once at her, but did as she bade, thrusting his knee up into her even as she wrapped her hands around his neck and pulled him towards her. Brennan felt a tightening in her stomach that started to increase as she felt the hardness of his muscular chest press against her delicate skin._

_While she still had the mental capacity to do so, she pressed her lips against his cheek and murmured, "Now...go easy this time. Don't get too impatient. We both know it'll taste sweeter the closer you get to getting me off."_

"_You talk too damn much, woman," he growled against her skin. "Way too goddamn much."_

"_And, if you want to suck me dry then maybe you need to make it worth my while," she muttered. "Now."_

_He grunted as his hands fell to her hips, and he tugged at the waistbands of the cotton sleep shorts she wore and, underneath them, the simple pair of white string bikinis she come to favor in recent years. He shifted_―_despite her sharp rumble of protest_―_and their bodies parted enough that he could push the offensive clothing articles down to her ankles. Not to be outpaced, she reached for his jeans, and had managed to unbutton them, pull the zipper lose, and had just begun tugging at them when he growled again. Yellow eyes met steel blue as he moved with lightning fast speed so that not only did he divest himself of his socks, shoes, jeans, and boxer briefs, but he grabbed for Brennan and lifted her against the refrigerator door._

"_You...are a jealous...and demanding...bitch," he growled at her as he used his hands to position her so that she was at the right height for what they both wanted him to do to her. She could feel the wet tip of his swollen cock poking against the undercurve of her ass as he dug his fingers into the soft swell of her cheeks in a way that marked her as his yet again. _

"_Two...of my more...redeeming...qualities," she muttered as she twisted against him, trying to find some relief for the mild pulsing that had increased to a steady throbbing in the short span of about five minutes. _

_When she was unable to get any satisfaction, Brennan let out a small howl of frustration. She moved to slip one of her hands away from his head so that she could reach between them to touch her clit. However, as soon as she moved_―_almost as if he'd sensed it_―_Angel thrust his hips forward as he used his pelvis to leverage her against the appliance door. He let his hands fall away from her ass as he brought them up to grab hers. He quickly pinned them above her head._

"_No," he muttered. "No, you don't."_

"_Why not, you bastard?" she snarled. "I want...I need..."_

"_No," he told her with a half-snarl in his voice. "Not yet."_

"_Why?" she repeated again. "I want to come...now."_

"_If I can't feed yet, you can't be fucked either," he told her. "And if you can't be fucked, you aren't going to come, so that's why."_

"_Who...said...you can't feed?" Brennan asked him. "Because I know it wasn't me."_

_Angel narrowed his eyes at her for a minute. She, just as she'd promised, matched him as she narrowed her own eyes. He tilted his head as he studied her for a few seconds. It turned out that he'd waited too long as she leaned her head out and smashed her mouth against his. She ran her tongue over his fangs, tasting the bitter and metallic taste of her own blood as she skated her tongue up the back of his fangs to the roof of his mouth. His own tongue met hers at that point, and he curled around the warm wetness of her attempt to invade and plunder his mouth. They battled each other for a minute before he bucked his hips toward hers. Even as he moved, she felt just enough friction against her swollen clit that she started to lose focus. _

_Her head fell away from his, her tongue falling out of his mouth as she whimpered. When he repeated the movement again, increasing the pressure as he pushed hard against her, her eyes grew wider as her eyes burned an even brighter blue. He had to turn his own gaze away from her, as the flash of light was too bright for him to look at without feeling a flash of pain. A familiar web of blue static enveloped them as she cracked, a thousand tiny flutters tugging at her belly as her climax came hard, fast and in jagged little puffs of sensation that made her breathing go ragged as it was almost too much sensory information for her mind to process. _

_When Angel realized that Brennan was growing slack against him because she'd come, he seized his opportunity. He again growled at her as he let his hands fall away from hers. He brought one to her back as he wrapped it around her to steady them while he used the other to guide his cock to her dripping entrance. When he'd lined himself up against her, he bared his fangs again with a snarl of triumph as he let his tip be sucked into the depth of her slick hole by an inch or two. However, he refrained from sliding home until he'd used his head to push hers to the side. She complied as if a rag doll, again barring the smooth expanse of skin to him that he'd long ago come to think of as his. Sinking his head a bit lower, he was careful to avoid her carotid artery even though he could feel the sweet pulsing of her life blood calling out to him. Instead, he half-kissed, half-licked his way from the curve of her neck to another favorite place he'd discovered some years before. He brushed the flat of his fangs against the soft skin just below her ear, and moved about an inch towards the back of her head where he found the pair of wounds he'd left just minutes earlier. When he was satisfied, he sunk his teeth into her, penetrating her with his fangs at the same time he pumped into her._

_Brennan, already weak with repletion when he'd entered her and gone no further than a small distance past her rim, let out a panting yell when he pushed into her fully. Her hands had already come to rest on the sharp angle of his bony hips. When he began to piston in and out of her in a fairly ruthless manner, at the same time he began to feed on her once again, she dug her nails into the skin of his hips. She felt herself building towards another climax, even as she began to grow lightheaded from bloodloss._

"_Ohhhh, fuck_―" _she grunted. "Angel..."_

_The sound of her crying his name was nothing more than a subtle gasp that was quickly drowned out by the thumping of her head, back, and ass hitting the cold metal of her refrigerator's door. She let out a series of incoherent pants that merely drove him to push harder and deeper into her with each thrust._

_When, at last, he felt her walls clench around him, he leaned his head back and let his fangs fall away from her skin. Almost as if it had been a catalyst, as soon as he'd felt her come, he felt himself start to fall over the edge. He pumped in and out of her a few more times before he was certain he was beyond the point of no return. _

_Even as he moved inside her, he started to feel as if his skin was on fire from the inside out. Still, unable to help himself, he refused to move away from her. Instead, he redoubled his efforts as he drilled into her with a relentless precision that culminated with his aching balls finally achieving some relief as he started to come. Even as the tell-tale release of his body's fluids signaled his climax, he felt something he'd never felt before. The familiar blue energy of their couplings was nothing new. But, this time, even as he came, he felt some of the power emanating from her leap out and into him. If he could've seen himself, Angel would've noticed that two small sparks of energy had leapt from her eyes to his. Almost as if they were extinguishing the yellow fire that was raging in his eyes, the orbs entered his eyes, causing him to almost instantly feel his forehead relax as his fangs retreated. After a few seconds, he wore the face of a normal man_―_albeit flushed and sweaty_―_as he jerked into her one final time with one last growl._

"_Fuck!"_

_At last, he stilled, and a fair amount of time passed before he smacked his lips together and lifted his head from where it had fallen forward on to the crook of her shoulder. He tilted his head just enough so that he could whisper in her ear, "Bren...I think...if I try to move at all...we're gonna fall."_

_She was quiet for several long moments. Although Angel could feel the warmth of her skin, the faint pulsing of her heartbeat, and the perspiration that covered her body in a fine sheen, he was still concerned when she didn't answer._

"_Bren...?" he breathed._

_She was again quiet for another moment before she uttered a single word. "Don't."_

_The haze of having just fed on and fucked the one person in the world who'd haunted his dreams and mind and heart in ways he'd never imagined possible made it more than slightly difficult for him to understand what she meant._

"_Huh?"_

_This time...it was Brennan who took a deep breath, exhaling slowly, before she said, "Don't. Don't tell...me...that wasn't one of the best fucks we've...or you've...ever had."_

_Unable to help himself, Angel blinked a few times before he shook his head, with a lopsided grin on his handsome face. "Don't worry," he told her. "I won't."_

"_Good," she muttered. "Good."_

_He was quiet for another minute and then said softly, "Bren?"_

"_Yes?" came the breathy response._

"_If I try to move...I think we'll fall," he told her again._

_Smacking her lips, this time it was her turn to she gave him a bit of a smile before she said simply, "Then, let us fall."_

_Unable to hold them up any longer, he nodded as he tried to steady their joint slide down the smooth surface of the stainless steel appliance door until the ground came up to meet them. He fell away from her, landing on his ass as he fell into an awkward Indian-style seated position. For her part, Brennan remained with her back propped against the fridge door with her legs extended in front of her._

_She stared at him for a long time, and then said, "Now...tell me...tell me you won't be thinking of me the next time you see that goddamn twit."_

"_I won't," he told her honestly. "I promise."_

"_Because...you're going to see her," Brennan said, more a statement then a question, before her brain realized what her mouth had said. Realizing it was too late to take it back, she pressed forward. "Aren't you?" she asked._

_He exhaled a long slow sigh before he answered, "I'm not her secretary, and I can't keep track when she comes and goes, or control where she goes, even if I wanted to. So, yeah, it's possible...probable, actually, that I'll see her again. Especially since I'm just going down to L.A...eventually, that is."_

"_Why L.A., Angel?" she asked him. "If you really want to get away...why go to L.A.?"_

_He shrugged. "Uhhh...to answer your question, I don't know why it's L.A. It's as good a place as any...at least, for now." Angel saw a flicker in Brennan's pale eyes and shifted slightly as he started to realize that the tile of her kitchen's floor wasn't particularly comfortable. "Besides," he said quietly, "It's not like I've got any other place to go—do I?"_

_She winced as she stared at him for a minute and then looked away as she said quietly, "I don't know."_

"_I've gotten used to California, I guess," he said with a certain glumness in his voice. "And, besides, you've got your life here. You're almost done with your Ph.D, and your classes that you're teaching." Angel swallowed as he let his eyes settle again on the smooth, pink skin of her shoulders and down her chest until he saw her breasts heaving slightly with each breath of oxygen she greedily sucked down. "Besides, I know, you've got your professor...err...well, your friend."_

_Brennan's breathing slowed a bit as she looked up and hoped that her voice sounded normal as she asked, "You know about him?"_

"_Yeah, Bren," he said. "I know about Michael. You're not the only one who knows how to find things out about people." He hesitated for a moment, then added, "I checked him out. I wanted to know and so I just wanted to make sure he was...well...let's just say I checked him out."_

"_But, why?" she asked. "Why would you do that?"_

"_Why?" he repeated. "What do you mean 'why', Bren? Why would I do it? Someone has to look out for you. I did it because I care about you. I don't want you to get hurt. So, of course, I keep an eye on things where you're concerned."_

_Brennan was quiet for a minute and then said in a soft voice, "I-I...wasn't certain that it mattered to you anymore...that I mattered to you, like that, anymore. Because...you know that I haven't seen you since our last Halloween," she said, tentatively. "And, as I said, that was...awhile ago. Almost three years, Angel. Once upon a time, that wasn't so long for us not to see one another, but now? Since...well, since things changed for us. And, especially since when parted on bad terms the last time I saw you. It's...well, I mean..."_

"_I know," he said with a hint of sadness. "I know it was. It's been...well, like I said, a lot of things've happened." He stopped and looked away from her. "But, I meant what I said, Bren. It's all done. I'm...well, all of that, what happened the last three years in Sunnydale. It's over."_

"_Is it?" she asked. "Is it really? Because...after the last time...you seemed, well, you seemed very...involved there. I-I...I'd be lying if I said I expected to see you before the next Halloween in two years' time."_

_Angel shook his head slowly before he answered. "I was foolish, Bren," he said. "I let myself get sucked in, because I wasn't thinking. I was...I don't know."_

"_Young love...new love," she began hesitantly. "It can be very alluring because of the newness...the simplicity of it all. It can be very alluring and very...consuming."_

_He frowned. "It was all that, I guess," he said. He remained silent for a moment before looking up and into her eyes. "Do you love the professor, this guy you've been with the last couple of years? Or is it, you know, just recreational?"_

"_Michael's very intelligent," she said. "Very intelligent...and he's very compatible with the life I have here...my life, my work."_

_Angel blinked. "The implication being, I could never be that."_

"_Now, don't," she said sharply, taking a deep breath as she took another deep breath. "Don't do that. Don't go putting words in my mouth. I never said that."_

"_I thought about it, Bren," he said. "Instead of L.A., coming back to Chicago. But, I didn't want to be a burden on you. You have carved out a great life for yourself these last years, and...I think you're destined for great things. I didn't want to be a hindrance."_

"_You've never been a burden to me," she said. "Never. I haven't thought of you like that..ever. If you remember, you were the one who left before, remember? I wanted you to stay here, with me. You were the one who went. I wanted...I wanted to shape my life around you, but you wouldn't let me."_

"_I left so you could have the life you deserved," he said, "not the one you thought was possible with me holding you back. If I had stayed, you'd never have gone to Mexico, and done all the great things you did there."_

_Brennan swallowed heavily once and then told him, "I know that. But, that was then. This is now. So...why did you come here, Angel? Just for a good fuck? Because you didn't have anywhere else to go? Both? Why did you do it?"_

_Angel was quiet for a moment before he answered. "Because I wanted to see you," he said, his voice tinged with sadness. "Because no matter what I do, Bren, I still feel..." He shook his head, unable to piece together what he wanted to say. He sighed, then said, "So, Michael...does he...is this thing with him...is it serious?" _

"_Michael..." she began, trying to answer his question. "I-I...when I found out that you'd taken up with the Slayer_―_Spike came to see me not long after he got back from Brazil. I suppose he was feeling a bit lost himself since apparently Drusilla told him she was done with him. And, well...we had a long talk one night. When he left, I really thought that you were done with me. So...I'd been with Michael a few times...nothing serious. Just a way to pass the time, if you will. But, after that...I thought that I could use him to get over you. But, no matter how hard I tried to do that, I eventually realized that he looked enough like you that when I closed my eyes, I could pretend it was you even if I hated myself for doing it. And, so I just kept staying with him in this vicious cycle. We worked, we fucked, I hated myself for it, and I hated him for it because he wasn't you. We'd fight. We'd eventually make up, and the whole damn cycle would start all over again."_

"_Hmmmm," Angel murmured, not sure whether this revelation was good news or not. "Okay. So...where are you in this cycle right now?"_

"_With Michael?" she asked. Angel silently nodded his head. "No...he's...he's...well, we aren't even talking right now. We had a huge fight, and he's pissed at me."_

"_So...that would be the fighting part of it?" he asked._

_She shrugged. "I guess."_

"_So, where does that leave us, Bren?" he inquired. "What about you and me?"_

_Brennan pursed her lips for a minute before she said with a sigh. "You know that I want you, but—"_

"_But what?" he asked. "Tell me. How do I put things right between us? How do I fix things?"_

_She gave him a long gaze as she studied him and then said, "Tonight's a good start. But...I'm not quite certain, Angel. So much is changing right now. I've been offered a job...and, well. It's not in Chicago."_

"_You're leaving?" the surprise and a certain measure of hurt was evident in Angel's voice as the questions tumbled from his lips. "Where are you going?" _

"_D.C.," she answered. "I haven't given the Jeffersonian a firm answer, but they want me. Badly. Very badly. And...it's an incredible offer, Angel." She stopped and then said, "But, I won't take it if...if I can't have you. I won't."_

_He angled his head to one side and gave her a long, wide-eyed look. "I've never wanted to hold you back," he said. "I want you to be happy. To be content, and to have an interesting life. I just—I just want to...to know somehow that what we have, today, and what we've had all these years, since the night we first came together here in Chicago, that we'll still have that, no matter what happens, or where either of us goes. Tell me that what's happened in the last three years hasn't changed that. Tell me that...well, if we can still be in each others' lives, as best and as often as we can, then...well, then I can be content with that. I could never be happy or content, Bren, if I knew that my happiness or contentment was at the expense of yours."_

"_It never has been," she said, the sincerity clear in her voice as she leaned forward to grab one of his hands. _

_She held his large hand between hers and looked into his eyes, which had softened and brightened in the wake of their slaked passion. As they held one another's gaze, she thought about all the times they'd been together in the eighty years since they first came together in the bedroom just a few feet away, and about all the times they'd parted company. She'd always tried to hold herself together, straight-backed and with a stiff upper lip, but Angel had never been able to hide the sadness he felt at being separated from her. His eyes—the warm, glimmering, welcoming, chocolate brown depths of his eyes—always betrayed his true feelings. _

"_It doesn't matter," she said, "if I stay here in Chicago or go to D.C or if you go to L.A. We'll...well, no matter what happens, we'll find a way to make things work. We always do...don't we? I mean...I-I...what do you want from me? If you don't want me, then..."_

"_I __do__ want you, Bren," he said firmly, using her grasp on his hand to pull her towards him and into his lap. "I-I...I need you. I still want you...and we can still see each other, at least as often as we have, if not more often if we can, right? I'm done with...well, with her. And, I think you're pretty much done with the professor. So...us. Can we make this work, somehow? This thing that we have? Can we try? Please?"_

_Her brow furrowed in a mixture of temptation, want, and fear as she said, "Angel. It won't be easy—"_

_He placed his hand on her shoulder, stroking his thumb over the bony edge as he leaned in close, tilting his head as his lips hovered just inches from hers. "Bren," he whispered. "I know that. But, I need you." Hesitating but for another moment, Angel slowly moved in and pressed his lips against hers with a murmur, squeezing her shoulder in his hand as he felt her lips quiver against his. "I want you. I need you. So please...say we can try. That's all I'm asking for...just a chance. Please?"_

_He pulled away slightly and gazed into her eyes, rolling his lips together firmly as if he could hold onto the warmth of her lips for just a few more moments. Angel's warm brown eyes were moist with emotion as he gave her a pleading, wide-eyed look for a few torturously long seconds before he leaned in and brushed his lips against hers once more. He brought a hand up from to cup her face, his thumb stroking gently along the edge of her jaw as he whispered, "Please, Bren."_

"_Angel—" she whispered again, this time her voice more tender as she said his name. "I-I—"_

_He smothered her words with his kiss, pressing his tongue against the line between her lips with a desperate insistence, demanding admittance to her mouth. A small whimper sounded in her throat as her lips parted and she welcomed his kiss. His hand slid from her shoulder down her arm to the round curve of her hip, and he pulled her against him as his mouth worked against hers, his tongue seeking hers out as he savored the sweet taste of her mouth._

_Sensing that she was running out of breath, he pulled away._

"_Please, Bren," he moaned. "Please. Say yes. Tell me that we can try. I know things will happen, and it won't be easy with me in L.A. and you in D.C. We'll each have our own lives. But I need you to promise me that we'll find time for one another. That we'll be...we won't let go of what we have with one another. We came...this time, we came so damn close to losing it. And I can't...we can't let that happen. Never again."_

_Staring into his eyes, her own blue eyes bright as she looked at him, she nodded in agreement to everything he'd just said. "Okay."_

Booth looked up from the cold steel floor and brought his eyes to meet Brennan's. He swallowed hard, his Adam's apple jerking in his throat as his mouth hung open in abject confusion. Rubbing his tear-rimmed eyes with the heels of his hand, he groaned and shook his head, then turned to her, his wide, warm brown eyes begging her to help him. His lips moved but he found himself unable to utter in that moment more than a single, simple plea:

"Bren..."

* * *

**-tbc-**

* * *

**AN2: **Okay, so there we have it. How was that for a crash course in Angel(us)-Booth's century and a half plus relationship with Bren? More importantly, what will Booth make of it? Who's ready to get going in some present action with Booth and Brennan? We know we definitely are so you probably are too. Please let us all know what you think. There isn't that much left to this piece after this point...just two shorter parts. Our goal is to have them (tentatively) posted this week in honor of Halloween. We'll see how we do. Until then, thanks for reading.


	6. Part IVA: Picking Up the Pieces, Part 1

**Echoes True and False**

**By:** Lesera128 & dharmamonkey

**Rated: **M

**Disclaimer: **Here we posit our normal rigmarole. No, we don't own anything from _Bones _or _Angel... _or anything else. Yes, we're wreaking what havoc we can with these characters that we don't own to create an awesome story. But, since it's only for the purposes of creative enjoyment and amusing distraction, we think we're okay. Are there any other questions? No? ::blinks:: Good. Then moving on―

**A/N: **We didn't get this up quite as quickly as we'd hoped, but within ten days (we think) it's too bad. This story (like Angel(us)-Booth and Bren's lives) just meanders at its own pace. In any case, without further adieu...

**Unf Alert:** We are beginning to think we spoil you. By the time this story is done, an UNF alert will have been needed for almost every damn chapter. No, we didn't do that on purpose because we know sex sells, it's just that in 150 years, Bren and Angel(us) had a _lot_ of sex...and errrm, well, yeah, don't get used to it, but for now...if you are of a consenting age and mind to enjoy that sort of thing, be fairly warned ye proceed at your own risk.

* * *

**Part IVA: Picking Up the Pieces, Part I**

* * *

It didn't make any sense to him. None of it. Nothing whatsoever. Not a bit.

Booth's breaths came in burning heaves as he felt his pulse racing. He gritted his teeth, squeezed his eyes tightly shut and shook his head vehemently, the only sound he could utter a throaty growl as he struggled to make sense of the flood of images, conversations, encounters, thoughts, feelings, and other memories that inundated him. His heart pounded amid the rapid rise and fall of his broad chest, his temples throbbing with each beat as his head began to ache from the way his jaw had tensed, the muscles drawn hard and tight over his scalp as a sickening panic crashed over him.

"No," he grunted with a repeated sharp shake of his head. Booth looked down at his trembling hands, turning them over and staring at his palms in curiosity before turning them over again and staring at the tops of his hands. These were his hands, and he knew them—the olive color of his skin, the pattern and contour of the veins, the thickness of his fingers and all the scars, wrinkles, and callouses he'd accumulated over the years—yet there was something puzzlingly alien about them all of a sudden. It seemed now that his own hands had done things and been places that he had never imagined.

He flexed his fingers as he vaguely wondered why it didn't feel strange not to be wearing the silver claddagh and Celtic knot rings he now remembered as having worn for years. Booth remembered standing in a dark alley holding the twisted, limp body of a dead cat in his hands after having made his supper sucking the lifeblood out of the stray. He blinked and recalled standing in a dark tunnel, holding detonating cord in his hands, stringing the wire between massive mines by candlelight. He remembered distinctly seeing those hands pressing into a mattress with cream-colored flannel sheets as he rocked his hips back and made love to a porcelain-skinned, auburn-haired beauty. He closed his right hand into a fist and remembered all the times that hand had held a sniper rifle flush against his right shoulder as he poised a calloused forefinger over the trigger, waiting for his breath to still enough to allow the crosshairs to settle over his target.

He turned his hands over again and stared at his palms. In all the memories that had bombarded him in the minutes since he'd felt himself melting into Brennan's passionate kiss, the hands that had done all those things, he knew, had been his own. It was unmistakable. But it also didn't make any sense. Yet there was no doubt in his mind that the man in all of these scenes and memories was the same man Booth met every morning when he stood in front of the mirror to shave. It was him. _He'd_ done these things. Somehow, someway...he was the man who'd lived that other life.

_He_ wasthat man...

Or..._was _he?

Booth wasn't sure. And just when he thought he was, the thought of it all—the places he'd been, the people he'd known, the women he'd loved, the things he'd done—overwhelmed him and he wasn't sure anymore.

"God, no. Please, I can't...make it stop. Stop—it has to stop. Make it stop!"

He stood there, hunched over, cradling his head in his hands as his strong fingers curled, almost clawlike, as he gripped his thick brown hair, scraping and rending his scalp as if he could somehow tear through his skull and rip away the web of thoughts that choked his mind with every passing breath.

"God," he cried out, his normally full, deep voice strangulated as he uttered a pained growl. "God, please...just make it stop. Holy Mother, help me. Please...oh, God. Please_**—**_"

His eyes snapped open and his vision began to clear with each fluttering blink. His mind still roiled but the sudden gush of memories seemed to have eased to a trickle.

Booth looked down at his soiled, blood-stained khaki slacks and his long-sleeved blue and red plaid shirt. It seemed like a lifetime ago that he'd pulled the trigger of Brennan's ludicrous .50 caliber pistol and shot Pete Geller through the steel door, killing him, but in spite of the haze that clung to his thoughts, he realized that only a couple of minutes had passed since Brennan's soft lips had sought his out and kissed him in an act of passion that shattered even the most basic assumptions Booth held about who he was. He swallowed, swinging his head from side to side as he looked for something, anything, to anchor him. His eyes met hers, and as he leveled a terrified, bloodshot, teary stare at his partner, he saw her own eyes rimmed with moisture as a single tear dribbled down her cheek. Her mouth fell open but uttered not a sound, and for reasons he didn't understand, in that singular moment, he suddenly didn't feel so alone in the world.

"Bones," he begged, his voice a weak plea as he looked directly at her for the first time since their kiss and seemed to be in some coherent frame of thought if only for a minute. "Help me," he said to her. "Make it stop. Make it go away. Please. Make it fucking stop."

Brennan wiped the tears from her eyes with the palm of her hand and walked towards him, her footsteps quiet and even as she tried to approach him without startling him in his obviously panicked and disoriented state. She reached out and gently touched her fingertips to the back of his shoulder and whispered his name.

"Booth..." she softly called out to him.

He swung his shoulder away from her with a throaty grunt and backed away from her, his steps falling hard and awkwardly as he stumbled away from her. He squeezed his eyes shut again, once more threading his clawed fingers through his sweat-damp hair, digging his nails into his scalp as he threw his head back and let forth a blood-curdling howl.

"Nooo!" he groaned, his voice echoing off the glass and stainless steel walls of the lab. "Noooooooo! Noooooooooo..."

Brennan could only watch in pained horror as she saw Booth stumble away from her touch. She saw him raise his hands to grasp his head, each palm cradling one side of his face as he leaned forward, squeezing his eyes tightly shut and continuing to mutter to no one in particular, shaking his head violently as he paced across the lab's atrium.

"No," he kept repeating, more to himself than to her. "No, no, _no!"_

A rush of adrenaline surged through Brennan's veins as she took several deep breaths and tried to grapple with the reality of what was happening to him...happening to _him _because of _her_. She felt the piercing spear of pain in her gut as she looked on and saw him struggling with an onslaught of memories that she knew would make absolutely no sense to him.

Brennan wondered what he had remembered. Had it all come back at once, all of the memories he'd accumulated since he was a boy growing up in Galway in the late 1720s? Did he remember the night he met his sire, the beautiful Anglo-American vampiress, Darla? Had he remembered the night he rose from his freshly-dug grave to prey upon his family, killing his mother, his father, even his baby sister, Katie—after she'd invited him back in, only to wreak his destructive, revenge-fueled havoc and given him his name when she called him an angel returned to her—and leaving their cold bodies bleeding on the floor of the family home?

Would he have recalled the night he met her, and the breath-catching moment their eyes first met as he was collecting his prize purse after the bare-knuckled boxing match in Covent Garden? Did he remember the way he fucked her that night on the Oriental carpet in front of her fireplace? And all the other crazy and depraved things they had done to one another over the years?

Did the anguished look in his eyes mean he remembered the tens of thousands of human lives he'd taken over the course of the nearly century and a half he raged across Europe as the most notorious, most sadistic vampire the world had ever seen? Did he remember the convents he'd sacked, snapping the necks of the older sisters and brutally violating the youngest, most innocent of the novice nuns before sinking his fangs into them and draining them dry of all but the last drop of their life's blood? Had he remembered the night he raped and killed a Gypsy girl gifted to him by Darla before he was cursed by a witch of her grieving clan to live an eternity with burden of a human soul and the conscience that came with it?

Twenty-five years he'd wandered the earth after that night, drowning in the mind-rending anguish of the countless atrocities he'd committed—did he remember that, too? Did he recall the night she found him, cold and starving in an alley in Chicago's meatpacking district and saved him from that anguish—exactly eight-four years to the very day before she'd inadvertently plunged him back into it with a single kiss?

Did he remember the way they made love that night, the first time they'd done so when he had a soul and could finally feel the full extent of the emotional connection they shared? Did he remember the deal they'd struck, the promises they made, and the relationship that had grown out of it in the years that followed? Had it all come back to him, so that now he knew what they'd been to each other for almost a century and a half?

Her heart ached for him as she realized the incredible gravity of what she'd done.

_Oh, God,_ she thought as she looked on while Booth's forehead crinkled in the pain he was obviously feeling. _What have I done? What have I done to him? God, no_―

Unable to help herself, Brennan took a step closer to Booth and lifted her hand as she reached out to him again. "Booth," she whispered, her voice raw from the choked emotions of guilt, fear, and sorrow she felt. "Please," she begged him. "I know...I-I know none of this makes any sense to you right now, but please...let me help you."

It was almost as if Booth hadn't heard a single word she'd said as he continued to shake his head furiously. "No, no, no, no, no―" he kept muttering, his voice edged with the pained and brittle desperation he obviously felt. "No―"

"Booth," she tried again, taking another step towards him. This time, she reached out and lightly put her hand on his left shoulder as she said softly, "Booth, please. Just stop for a minute. You've got to stop. Just for a minute. I'll help you, I promise. I know this is confusing and none of it makes any sense, but I can explain. I can. I can explain everything, I swear, but right now you've got to stop. _Please._"

It was only when he finally felt Brennan's touch, that something besides the onslaught of overwhelming and chaotic sights and sounds, images, and feelings pierced the cluttered bedlam that inundated him. Looking at her extended arm, Booth lifted his panicked gaze to meet hers. He looked into her eyes, her gaze washing over him like a waterfall of warmth. Her hand gently squeezed his shoulder and he felt the quiet hum in the back of his mind, which he'd long since forgotten about as the years ticked by, suddenly began to hum louder in his ears, slowly moving from the back of his mind into his limbs, the murmur of familiarity and...a curious sense of safety..._thrumming_ deep in his chest as his brown eyes met her blue ones. Booth stood there, stunned and so lost yet at once feeling that there might be a way out of the madness that had engulfed him, and for a few seconds, his silent plea was clear:

_Help me._

"I will," Brennan responded almost as if he'd actually said the words out loud. "Oh, God. I promise I will. I'll do whatever it is that you need me to do, I promise."

Booth stared at her, hesitant to believe anything to be real and true in that moment, but desperate to let go of the only lifeline he had as his head was aswirl with a thousand thoughts of a life he never knew he'd lived—and at that point, wasn't sure he had. Staring at her, not quite certain what to believe or to feel or to do, all he could eke out was a single word...a question really, that reiterated his earlier unspoken plea for help.

"Bones?" he croaked.

But, then, as he blinked at her, he suddenly realized, that wasn't her name. Or was it? He was so confused. Her face was familiar, and he knew he knew her, better than he knew anyone, but suddenly, he wasn't even sure what her name was.

_Not Bones, _he told himself, his brow knitting in confusion as he struggled to straighten out the tangled skein of memories that had suddenly taken up residence in his head. _Not Bones. Brennan. Bren. Temperance Brennan. __Bren__. Not Bones. Never Bones. Not_―

It didn't make any sense. And it seemed that no matter what he tried, he couldn't make it make any sense.

"No!" Booth yelled out again, this time tearing his gaze away from hers as he slapped her arm away from where she was still touching his shoulder. Stumbling away from her, he cried out as he fell to his knees. "God...what's happening to me?" he cried as he covered his face with his hands, scratching his nails over his stubble. "What's...I just...I-I...oh, God!" His hands dropped away from his face and he fell forward, leaning into his hands as he stared at the floor, shaking his head and grinding his teeth, muttering unintelligibly in between heaving breaths.

"Booth..." she implored him again, trying to get through to him and knowing that she was failing miserably. "Please, Booth. Let me help you, okay? Because, it's going to be alright. I promise, Booth. I―"

_Am I? _he thought. _Who am I? What __is__ my name? Booth? No. _He shook his head and looked down the floor. _Angel? No_―_Angelus? Wait. Liam. _He closed his eyes and grunted. The images raced through his mind and he heard her call his name, but not _his _name. It made no sense. _Not Booth, _he thought_. Or am I? Maybe I never was. Fuck. I don't know. Oh, God. What's happening to me? Who am I? Holy Mother, help me, _he prayed. _Who am I?!_

Brennan took a step towards him again. "Don't," he growled at her, raising his head and glaring at her with dilated, bloodshot eyes, his jaw shifting from one side to the other as he continued to shake his head incessantly. "Make it stop," he begged. "Just make it...please, God, make it stop..."

Brennan pursed her lips sympathetically and was about to say something when she heard the distinctive _beep-hum-click _of the door to the Medico-Legal Labbeing opened with a key card. A second later, the sliding door swept open and the security guard, Micah, poked his head into the lab with a smile.

"Oh," he coughed, recognizing Brennan as she turned around, his eyes widening and his cheeks quickly flushing a deep pink as he saw her costume. "Is, uhh, everything alright here Dr. Brennan?" Micah turned his head and saw a familiar dark-haired, broad-shouldered figure on his hands and knees. "Agent Booth?"

"Yes," she replied in as calm and even a tone as she could muster at that point, looking straight into the guard's eyes as she took a step towards the door in the hopes of distracting him from where Booth knelt on the floor. "Everything is just fine, thank you, Micah."

The guard glanced once more at the agent, who sat up on his haunches but didn't turn his gaze. Micah looked at the anthropologist but quickly averted his eyes, doing what he could to avoid looking at her breasts which were nearly spilling out of the bustier of her Wonder Woman costume. He bit his lip and glanced at his watch, gesturing towards the exit with an awkward jerk of his chin. "Well," he said, "since, uhhh, you two look like you have everything under control here, I'll just, uhhh, go ahead and finish my rounds." He paused, then added, "Happy Halloween, Dr. Brennan...and..." His eyes furrowed as he gave the FBI agent a last passing glance. "Well, you, too, Agent Booth..."

Then, without waiting for her reply, he shrugged and slipped back out into the hallway before he disappeared.

"No," Booth murmured, almost as if he wasn't aware of the fact that Micah had just interrupted them as he rubbed his brow with a trembling hand while he looked toward the door with one narrowed, twitching eye. "No—I can't...I just can't...it's too... just no. No, no, no..."

As much as a part of Brennan wanted to help comfort her partner and one-time lover, she realized that if anyone else walked in and saw them, the situation could quickly spin further out of control then it already had. One more glance at Booth made it clear to her that the likelihood of getting him out of the lab, down to the parking garage, into either his SUV or her sedan, and back to her apartment without incident or being noticed, was a virtually zero.

"Booth," she said quietly, trying to get his attention, but afraid to risk touching him again unless it was vitally important to their well-being. "Please. Stay with me, Booth. Please? Booth?"

Brennan waited a moment, but she got no response. Booth seemed locked in his own world of memories and emotions that, at the moment, she had no way of accessing in their current locale if he wouldn't or couldn't meet her halfway. As she stared at his crumpled and shaking form, she swallowed heavily once and then made her decision.

Not certain if she could pull it off, particularly as it had been so long since she'd expended that type of power, Brennan drew a deep breath and realized that she at least had to try. Taking several deep breaths, she walked to where Booth had collapsed, knelt down behind him, quickly wrapped her arms around his torso, and before he could even begin to struggle against her, as she rested her chin on his shoulder, she muttered a strange incantation. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, her eyes burned a bright blue hue for a few seconds before the energy wrapped its tentacles around the joined pair.

An instant later, in another flash of dazzling blue light, the pair were gone and the lab was empty once more.

* * *

**-tbc-**

* * *

**A/N2: **Awww...poor Booth. And poor Bren who is, at long last, as some have requested, rocking the wicked blue mojo (thanks for the descriptor to Spike). What says everyone so far...besides we fooled you on the UNF Alert...ha. But hotness is coming in the next chunk from which this odd piece was split. So, do let us know how we're doing. We've had to split this chapter (again!) into two (if awkward) parts, so part two is coming up next. Stay tuned.~


	7. Part IVB: Picking Up the Pieces, Part 2

**Echoes True and False**

**By:** Lesera128 & dharmamonkey

**Rated: **M

**Disclaimer: **Here we posit our normal rigmarole. No, we don't own anything from _Bones _or _Angel... _or anything else. Yes, we're wreaking what havoc we can with these characters that we don't own to create an awesome story. But, since it's only for the purposes of creative enjoyment and amusing distraction, we think we're okay. Are there any other questions? No? ::blinks:: Good. Then moving on―

**A/N: **Ummm...if you're still reading this, we applaud you. Carry on.

**Unf Alert:** See applies. See the last part.

* * *

**Part IVB: Picking Up the Pieces, Part II**

* * *

The first thing that Booth noticed, even before the warmth of her touch registered in the still-roiling recesses of his chaotic mind, was the strange coil of crackling blue light that wrapped around them.

It reminded him distinctly of razorwire, the way it wound around in tight coils, and the way it seemed to poke and prick at his skin. He felt the blue electricity tighten around him at the same time as he felt Brennan's arms snake around his back, her warm palms and slender fingers pressing into his chest as she hugged him. His heart was racing and the vivid memories—of nights spent drinking whiskeys in a lamp-lit tavern as the sounds of lyrical Irish voices filled the room around him; of wiping the blood from his mouth as he turned his back on a crumpled body that lay at his feet as the clomping of a horse's hooves echoed against the cobblestones; of ducking his head as he stepped through the hatch of a German submarine into a dark engine room;of sitting in the living room of a tiny Los Angeles apartment chain-smoking as his warlock houseguest prattled on through all seven games of the '52 World Series; of standing in the vacant library of Sunnydale High School in the middle of the night talking in hushed tones to the young Slayer's soft-spoken, English-born Watcher; of sitting behind a broad mahogany desk in a large office overlooking the wide expanse of downtown L.A. and plotting his next move in the seemingly endless game of chess he was playing against the Senior Partners—still flickered in his mind even as he felt her fingertips against his ribs. He winced as the energy pricked at his skin through his clothes and he arched his back, pressing into Brennan's embrace and feeling her bosom against his shoulders. He opened his mouth and began to moan when suddenly he felt the wind knocked out of him.

The next thing Booth remembered was falling forward, exhausted, as his fingers dug into the carpeted floor of a dimly-lit room. For several seconds, his chest burned and he struggled for breath. He remembered feeling like this before—a sharp jerk that nearly took his breath away before—when he stepped out of the side of a C-17 cargo plane for the first time at Fort Benning and felt his chute open, but as his eyes blinked, several times, trying to figure out where he was, he knew he wasn't at Benning. In fact, if it weren't for the fact that he could feel the floor beneath him, he'd have sworn he was in free-fall.

_Blessed Mother Mary, _he prayed. _Where am I?_

He lifted his head up, staring up at the cream-colored knockdown texture of the ceiling above him as he shook his head, feeling the pile of the wool carpet against the calloused skin of his palms.

_What's going on?_

After a moment, Booth felt a heaviness on his back, and he realized that Brennan was still embracing him, her arms curled around his midsection as her hips pressed against his could feel her chest heaving with each breath she gasped for as her hands began to slowly pull away, sliding around the sides of his abdomen. He felt her breasts, soft and pliant, pressing against his back as the rest of her spooned around him as he crouched there. He felt the crackle of electricity prick again at his skin, through his plaid shirt and white T-shirt, as if the energy was radiating from her into him. Booth felt a raw tingle at the base of his spine, and again the murmur of the familiar hummed inside of him, arcing louder as he felt her hips jerk against his backside. He grunted at the sensation but felt paralyzed in that moment, able to feel everything but unable to move. Yet another wave of panic crashed over him as a loud rumble of thunder filled his ears. The room flashed bright as a nearby crack of lightning shook the windows of Brennan's home and rattled the dishes in her cupboards.

"Booth," she said, her voice soft and even as she looked at him. She had never seen him this way—his eyes wide with panic, his forehead deeply creased with worry, his jaw alternating between the slack of confusion and the rigidity that betrayed his existential frustration—and a wave of dismay swept through her gut as her mind raced to discern how to help him. "It's okay," she told him. "We're someplace safe now. You're going to be fine. I can explain everything."

His heart began to pound at hearing her voice, and suddenly, her very touch seemed to scorch his skin through his clothes. His brow knit low over his eyes as his face contorted into a grimace and he shook his shoulders hard, twisting from side to side as he tried to escape her grasp.

"Leave me alone," he grumbled, jerking up to a sitting position as she released him, her arms dropping away as she fell back. "Leave me the fuck alone, will ya?" Brennan's eyes stared at him as she crawled backwards towards her sofa, torn as to how to best handle her partner as he seemed to continue his swift downward spiral.

Brennan wasn't even sure what her options were. She knew that whatever she did, she couldn't just leave him to founder on his own—she'd felt his apical pulse throbbing in the space between his fourth and fifth intercostal, just below his heart, as her arms were wrapped around him, and she knew his heart was racing, pounding in distress—but she knew that there was no way to undo what she'd done, to put the figurative genie back in the bottle. She could tell from the faint, interstital crackle of energy in the air that the spell that had held his memories at bay for years was gone, shattered in a wake of a single kiss.

There was no going back.

There was only one way and that was the way forward, wherever it led them.

They needed to cross the line that had been left toed but uncrossed between them. She had to lead him up to that line and encourage him to exercise what modicum of free choice she had left him. With a nod, she took a breath and tried to swallow the knot of fear she felt, then opened her mouth to speak.

"Booth," she said. She repeated his name, her voice low and steady each time, but he didn't respond. Her intonations evaporated into the air of the dark room as he closed his eyes and shook his head, again and again, growling and then grunting before finally leaning forward, propping himself up on his hands and knees as he sat there in what appeared to be a state of stunned exhaustion.

_Where am I? _he wondered, his hands laying palm-down on the multicolored Azerbaijani carpet as his fingers curled into the pile, grabbing and tugging at it, lifting the 200 year-old carpet off the pad with his hands as he growled again in frustration. The hair on his arms stood on end and he felt a tingling sensation, a curious restlessness that made his skin crawl.

_Where am I? _Booth squeezed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth as he clawed at the carpet, leaning into his hands as he sought to center himself despite the way the room still seemed to be spinning around him.

He let out a sharp breath and opened his eyes, forcing himself to look at the carpet beneath him. _I know this rug, _he told himself. _I've sat in this room and watched movies on that couch with Parker. I've sat in here and done post-case paperwork with her. I've eaten takeout_ _in here. _A faint smile flashed across his lips. _I've spilled pork pad thai on this carpet, _he smirked. He loosened his grip on the carpet's dense pile and splayed his fingers on the wool, staring for a moment at the way his hands looked against the alternating reds, golds and blacks of the rug, all of which looked washed-out in the dim light of the room. A reassuring murmur hummed in the back of his mind as he flexed his fingers against the rug. _I know this room. I know this place. I've been here. _He took a breath and blinked. _I, _he reminded himself. _I. Me. _He nodded and pressed his lips together in a firm line. _Me, _he could swear he heard the murmur say faintly. _Booth._

"Booth," Brennan said again. As soon as he heard her voice utter his name, he felt a pang, a twist in his gut, torn between the comfort of her husky tone on the one hand and the confusion of several lifetimes of memories, so many of them centered around one figure, at once so familiar and yet alien.

"I..." He swallowed, then chewed his lip. "I...I-I...".

He coughed, struggling for breath, and with a pained grunt, he pushed himself up into a sitting position. Booth's head swung from side to side as he surveyed the dark room around him, his warm brown eyes wide as he tried again to anchor himself to the only thing he knew was truly real.

"_This," he said as he arched his back and looked down at her, unable to hold back a grin as her cheeks rose in a smile in the cool blue moonlight shone through the window of their sleeper car. The wheels beneath their bed rumbled along the track as the train wound its way through the moraines and glacial lakes of Alberta that night, the rhythmic clacking drowned out by the sound of her throaty sigh and the feel of her beneath him, her head leaning back as the energy crackled against his skin, then faded. "Nothing else, Bren," he muttered as the last faint pulses of him washed into her. "Only this is real," he said as the light of the full moon caught the bright flash of blue in her eyes. "Tonight. You and me."_

The darkness of the room was suddenly bathed in light as another crack of lightning cut across the sky outside, and moments later the silence of the room was shattered by a loud, window-rattling boom of thunder. He turned his head and, in the fleeting seconds when the room was illuminated by the lightning, he saw her face.

"_Angelus," she said to him with a crooked grin, sliding her finger along the small of his back where his braces were buttoned to the waistband of his gray herringbone wool trousers. She chuckled as a shiver ran up his spine and he stepped away from the bar. "Come," she said, tugging him towards the rear door of the public house. "You need to feed," she told him. "And I have a hunger of my own I need to do something about, mmm? Let's leave this place, now."_

"Where am I?" he asked her, his eyes fluttering as he stared at her, unable in that moment to discern for certain who she was. "What...B-b-buh...where..." Booth shook his head and brought his hand up to rub his eyes, squeezing the bridge of his nose between his forefingers, wincing as his head seemed to begin to throb again between his temples as the last rumbles of thunder faded.

"Booth," she said to him, leaning forward as she sat on the edge of the sofa, her eyes narrowed slightly as she watched him. "Booth, listen to me, alright? Everything's going to be okay..."

Her words echoed in his mind, slowly fading as the room around him descended once more into darkness.

"_Booth..."_

He squeezed his eyes shut and grunted, threading his fingers through his hair as he shook his head.

"_Angelus..."_

His eyes snapped open again and he gritted his teeth, swallowing hard as he watched her lean forward and slide a pillar candle across the top of her coffee table, pursing her lips as she struck a match and lit the candle, which cast a tiny wobble of light that illuminated the delicate lines of her square-jawed face. She opened her mouth and he watched her slender, pink lips part as if in slow-motion, and he felt his breath catch in his throat as he heard the words fall from those familiar lips.

"_Please, Angel..."_

The images contorted in his mind like some kind of sordid kaleidoscope.

Two sets of memories. Two lives lived. Two sets of thoughts and feelings. Two sets of wants and needs.

And, the only constant between both was _her._

_Her. _He gazed deep into her eyes—those endlessly deep pools that flickered with insight, reflecting back a hundred colors from shale gray to pale laurel green to the shimmering blue of an iceberg—and he felt the flutter of his racing heart in his chest suddenly stutter, then slowly fall into a steady rhythm. _Her. _It was always _her. _He'd always felt it, from the very first moment his eyes met hers. It had always been her. She was the one. She'd always been the one. _Her_.

Brennan.

Bones.

Immortal witch from England.

Forensic anthropologist from Chicago.

But...his partner in all things, it seemed...if he could just figure out who in the hell _he_ was.

Everything he thought he was, wasn't—or was it? He wasn't sure anymore.

_Seeley Joseph Booth, _he mouthed silently. _I know who I am. Where I've been. _He tried to narrow his thoughts to remember. He recalled standing on the court, on the edge of the paint, in the gym at South Philadelphia High School, dribbling the ball a couple of times before he took the free throw. _Class of 1989,_ _right? _He'd been an all-state point guard and won a scholarship to play college ball at Duquesne. _A lot of good that did me, _he thought. _It was good while it lasted, though, huh? _Once his shoulder had healed from the rotator-cuff surgery, he 'd shown up for spring drills at the Palumbo Center and discovered his trademark fading jump-shot had all but faded away. His scholarship evaporated. Ten days after the end of the spring semester, with few other options left, he found himself at a MEPS station in Philly, signing his Army enlistment papers. Less than a year later, he was standing on the side of a highway outside of Basra, his nostrils flaring at the smell of death as he watched the Iraqi tanks smolder under the setting sun. _I was a soldier, _he told himself, remembering the way the rifle felt in his hands, his index finger resting patiently along the side of the action._ Now I'm a cop. I fight for what's right, for the people who can't fight for themselves, who are too helpless to help themselves. It's who I am. It's what I do. It's what I've always done. Right._

_Right?_

His whole life he'd been a fighter, a warrior—a survivor, even as a boy growing up—and each battle he'd fought, whether he'd won or lost, made him who he was. _Right?_ But he couldn't shake from his mind the splatter of memories of other fights he'd fought, other battles he'd waged, in deserted alleys, under bridges and in abandoned warehouses, all of them draped in darkness in the black of night. Those fights, those memories, those places and names and deeds—they were real, too, weren't they? They were part of him, too.

Whoever _he _was.

Booth...no, Angel...no, Angelus? Liam? All of them? None of them? No one? He just didn't know anymore.

Irish...American. A vampire...a man. A private investigator and CEO...Army Ranger and FBI Agent.

So few things were constant. He was a father. That much was the same in both. He tried to help those who needed help. He was strong. A fighter. A warrior. He did what needed to be done. He had his soul, his spirit. And...then there was _her_. And his want of her. That was always there. Her... he'd always wanted _her._

But, beyond that...Booth didn't know exactly _who_ he was anymore. All he knew was that—whoever he was, whoever he'd been—she'd been there with him, and that while so little made any sense at all to him at that moment, he somehow knew that he'd be alright. He wasn't sure how he knew that. The murmur inside of him—the low hum that had reassured him so many times when he felt the dark fingers of fear digging into his soul—was raising its voice again, and this time, the pitch and tenor of the murmur sounded in a husky tone that he knew all too well. He knew that voice. It was a voice that had filled his ears and his mind for years, since the morning he first heard it ring out in the lecture hall at American:

_Her _voice.

The storm outside raged with the rumble of thunder and the crackle of lightning. Spinning on his heels, Booth turned to face her as she stood next to the window, the power outage making the only source of illumination the silver forks that lit the sky outside and occasionally rendered her in silhouette.

"What have you done to me?" he croaked, his voice raw and full of the confusion and anger and hurt he felt. "I-I...who am I? I don't...what do I even call you? Bones? Bren? Something else that I've forgotten, but will remember any second?"

She swallowed thickly and then suddenly her shoulders fell and she let out a heavy sigh. "I never did this to hurt you," she said quietly. "I only did it to help you...protect you...so that you could be happy."

"But we _were _happy, weren't we?" he asked**, **his voice rising in a wistful lilt as his question fell from his lips. A moment flashed through his mind as he remembered laying in a bed with her head resting on his bare chest, and he was caressing her hair, plucking the stray, sweat-damp strands off her forehead as she sighed contentedly. "Before—before all this...whatever _this _is..."

Brennan hesitated, pursing her lips as she watched him work his jaw, his mind obviously struggling to make sense of it all. "We were," she admitted. "We were happy, but—you were in danger. You know that. The Senior Partners...they wanted to hurt you...to kill you. And, you wouldn't walk away so I did what I had to do so that you could be safe. Safe and happy."

Booth stared at her for a moment, incredulity clear in his eyes."You did this," he muttered. "What we had, you threw it away. All by yourself, without consulting with me, you decided to throw it away."

"I didn't throw it away," she blurted out defensively. "I was willing to give up my own happiness so that you could be both safe and happy, Booth. I gave it a lot of thought and—"

He narrowed his eyes as he suddenly remembered a memory of a sunny afternoon he'd sat and listened as she'd confessed to what she had done and told him they had just one more day together. "You never asked me," he grumbled. "You never asked me...and I'm so angry at you."

"You _were _angry," she said, her voice briefly distant as she, too, remembered that day and gently corrected him. "The way you're angry now. Now that you..." She sighed. "Now that you remember it again, you're still angry."

"You had 'em take it all away," he said, grinding the words out as he clenched his fists with mounting ire. "All of it. It's just..." His voice trailed off, unable in that moment to give words to the feelings that swirled inside of him.

"I did it so you could be safe," she said again. "I wanted to you to be safe. Safe and happy. It's all I ever wanted for you..."

Something in the softness of her voice set him off. "If you did this to make me happy—well, a fat lot of good that did, Bones!" he suddenly growled at her. "God, what...I mean, shit...do you have any fucking idea what you've done to me? I can't...I don't even know up from down anymore. _Fuck._"

"I'm so sorry, Booth," she whispered. "I'm so very sorry."

Hearing her normally firm, strong voice drop to a whisper awakened something inside of him.

"I know you're angry," she continued, her voice cracking as she tried to remind him of the whole last day they'd spent together before their lives had been irrevocably changed. "You were angry before—but you found your way to the other side of it, remember? You...you came to peace with it, with what was was going to happen. Don't you remember? You didn't stay angry. We had a last day together." She swallowed at the memory, then added. "It was hard, but it was a good day. A good last day. You remember that, don't you? Please tell me you remember the good parts of that day."

_"Bren—" he said, his voice soft as he took another step towards her. "Lass, no. Please, please don't think like that. It's not...you and me? Whatever's happening here today? Whatever's gonna happen tomorrow and the next day and the next day, it's not the same. It's not the same because what you did...I know that you did it out of love."_

Booth blinked a couple of times as the familiar murmur inside of him began to buzz more loudly in his ears, then faded again to a low, nearly inaudible hum as he remembered sitting in a different room, albeit furnished with some of the same furniture. He cocked his head to the side as he stared for a few moments at the reddish-brown leather chair in the corner. He'd seen that chair before, of course. He'd sat in that chair, grumbling as he filled out a stack of end-of-case paperwork. But as he stared at that chair, he found himself awash in the swirling memories of a dozen other times he'd sat in that chair. One memory tugged at him in particular. He remembered sitting in that chair and gazing into her cool eyes, glimmering with tears as she spoke, her voice low with gravity.

_"What did you do?" he asked her._

_"I-I..." Her words trailed off and then she gulped down one last swallow of air before she said, "I made a deal, Angel. I-I...I did what I had to do to protect you. So, I made a deal."_

_His jaw tensed as he looked at her and, his voice heavy with caution, asked, "What kind of deal?"_

_"The kind of deal where you'll be safe," she answered vaguely. "Wolfram and Hart...they won't be able to get to you. You'll be safe...and happy. You'll finally have a chance to be happy and to live the life that you deserve, Angel."_

He turned his head and his eyes met hers, and he saw in their deep blue depths the same anguish, love and contrition he saw in his memory.

"_I made a deal," she said. "And I'm sorry. I'm so sorry that it has to happen like this, but I did it, and it's done. There's no undoing it, no going back. I drew a line...and that line...we can't—it's a point of no return. I swear to you that I'll spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to you, as best I can, but I won't...it had to be done, Angel. It had to be done."_

Booth swallowed as her words rang in his ears.

"_I'm sorry..."_

"Don't tell me you're fucking sorry," he growled, breaking the silence that had fallen between them. "I don't want to hear how fucking sorry you are. I didn't want to hear it then, and I sure as fuck don't want to hear it now."

"But, Booth," she said in protest.

"Stop it!" he snapped, raising his hands up, his fingers tensely splayed. "Stop...stop, just stop all that shit, okay? Alright? Stop fucking apologizing and just―"

He sighed loudly, his breath rattling in his throat until it finished as a frustrated growl.

"So fucking sorry," he said mockingly. "Always so fucking sorry. What a bunch of horseshit. Fucking horseshit, all of it. You took it all away from me—everything that we had, everything that we were, and everything that we'd worked so hard to build together. We were so fucking happy, and you made me give it up." His gaze hardened as his eyes smoldered with an anger so intense they glimmered like volcanic glass in the flickering candlelight. "You ripped my fucking guts out when you told me that I'd lose it all. Every fucking bit of it. You know that?"

He glared at her, and she met his gaze, but while her lips parted, she said nothing. After a beat, he began to rant again.

"For nothing," he said, jutting his lower jaw forward as he shook his head. "And it was all for nothing, wasn't it? All of what you had me give up. What _you _gave up. What we lost." He leveled a hard stare at her, his dark brown eyes blazing nearly black, flickering with flecks of gold as the candlelight reflected off of them. "And all the bullshit you put me through these last couple of years. Going out of my fucking mind wanting you the way I did. It was for nothing, wasn't it? Wasn't it?"

"Booth," she said pleadingly. "Please don't do this..."

He rubbed his long, thick fingers over his eyes. "I don't understand," he muttered. "It doesn't make any fucking sense. "You gotta explain this to me, Bones, alright? Because this doesn't make any fucking goddamn sense. I can't make it make sense in my head." He tapped his finger on the side of his temple. "You know, you gotta—"

"I will," she promised him, a bit of desperation coming into her voice. "I swear I will. All I want―"

He walked towards her quickly and reached out, grabbing her hand as he yanked her towards him. He stared at her with frustration and want and confusion and rage swirling in the depths of his dark brown eyes.

"I remember this," he grunted at her, curling his fingers around her slender wrist. "I remember a lot, actually. Everything...and then some. But the only thing that I remember and that doesn't make my head hurt is this...us. I-I...you're the one constant...the link between the two."

Booth looked down at her wrist in his hand, then brought his eyes up to meet hers. His gaze traced her features—her slender, pink lips and the bright, straight teeth behind them; the long line of her square jaw, which was at once both strong and delicate; her narrow, upturned nose and her dark, brownish-auburn eyebrows, arching over her deep, shimmering blue eyes—and he remembered how many nights he'd stared into her eyes, captivated by her and the way she had challenged him, again and again, and how the dance they'd begun, not two or three years earlier but a century and a half ago, had filled him with satisfaction yet left him hungrier for her every night he spent in her company.

"Do you know that?" he finally groused after he'd finished looking his fill at her. "In all of it—both sets of memories, it's the craziest damn thing because I remember having you, and I remember not having you."

His own words echoed in his mind. _"You're the one constant...the link between the two." _Booth growled at the thought. _It's like fucking poetry, _he huffed silently as he heard the wistfulness in his own thoughts. _But there's no poetry here, _he told himself reprovingly. _Because I'm not a poet. I hate fucking poetry, and I always have. The pages were torn out of that little book when she cut her little deal and shipped me off to some sort of magical Van Diemen's Land, ain't that right? All the romance and the poetry is a crock of fucking shit, isn't it? 'Cause in the end, none of it fucking mattered._

"None of it fucking mattered, did it, Bones?" he asked, his thoughts suddenly finding their voice. "All of the misery you put me through. Losing it all. Losing you. Then..." His brow furrowed hard over his eyes as he shook his head and tried to make her understand, becoming more and more frustrated with each passing moment when he felt she wasn't grasping the thoughts and feelings he was trying to convey to her.

"You don't understand what that's like, do ya?" he asked. "You don't have any idea what it was like for me. Huh? I've spent the last four years dreaming about you...wanting you...wondering what it'd be like to have you...thinking about what it would be like to finally be with you...inside of you. I've driven myself crazy thinking about it...thinking about how much I want you...how you make me feel. And, now...it's like someone flipped a switch, and I remember not just what it feels like to want you, but what it feels like to have you and be inside you. But, you know what, Bones? My gut instinct says I shouldn't trust any of it. Not a single damn thing. I can't trust anything I remember...and so that leaves me with only one choice, right? I can't trust what I remember...I can only trust what I feel. And, right now, you know the only thing I want to feel?"

Booth licked his lips and squeezed her wrist in his hands, hard enough that he knew it would hurt. Unable to help herself, Brennan let out a small sigh that caught his attention. His eyes narrowed and darkened as he looked at her and spoke, his voice still hard but with a decidedly darker edge to it.

"I know that sound," he told her. "I recognize it."

Shaking her head, Brennan replied, "No, it's nothing."

"That's how we began," he said, his voice dropping into a lower register that betrayed his growing desire. He stared at her chest, her breasts held up on prominent display by the silver-edged red bustier of her costume. "Remember? You made that sound...or one that was pretty damn close that first night after the boxing fight."

Still chewing on her lip, Brennan remained quiet as she saw something familiar creep into Booth's brown eyes that had been gone for what seemed like an eternity during the years they'd spent as partners. "We were on fire, that first night,**"** he said, his voice low and velvety as he felt a tingle roll up his spine at the memory. "I saw you wax those two guys, right there in front of me, and the look in your eyes when you turned around and smiled at me—I got so hard. Real fuckin' hard, just like that." He snapped his fingers for emphasis. "You made me so fucking hot, that night. I wanted you so bad, and you kept teasing me, getting me so worked up that I thought I was gonna die if I didn't fuck you. And..." His breath rose and fell, his heart pounding in his chest as he felt the memory crackle through his limbs. "And we fucked—and you were unreal, how goddamn good you felt around me—and it was the damnedest thing, because even after fucking you, I still wanted you, even more than I did before. You burned me, and I smoldered for you. And that fire between us, it never went out," he told her. "Seems like when everything else was fucked up, that was the one thing we could always count on—the way it felt when we were together. I'd be all wound up about something, then we'd fuck, and it'd be better. We'd fight the way we did, and then we'd fuck, and whatever it was that had been eating away at us, or getting between us, we'd begin to be able to deal with it. The sex..." He swallowed at the memory of taking her against the wall of her London bedroom after a particularly vicious spat. "The sex was the glue that held us together, wasn't it? You know, while we mended whatever else that had gone wrong."

She stared at him for a minute, both afraid and hopeful in the very same breath, about what she thought he was suggesting. "Booth..." she breathed, but didn't say anything else when he nodded at her and continued to speak.

"You know I'm right," he told her. "When we had that, everything else would fall into place, wouldn't it?" he asked. He shuddered at another memory that crackled through his mind, then smirked and said, "And maybe that's the way we can absolve yourself of the guilt. You know, for what you did to me." After another moment, he added, "And for what you did to us."

She blinked at him, holding her breath as she dared not utter a single word. However, when he squeezed her wrist again painfully, knowing that he wanted some type of verbal response from her, she nodded furiously. When he grunted at her, and made it clear that her proffered response wasn't good enough, Brennan winced slightly and then tried again.

"Whatever you want," she breathed, her voice barely louder than a whisper "Whatever you want...I'll give it to you. You don't even have to ask. It's yours, Booth. It's _always _been yours. Just tell me. Tell me what you want. Tell me how I can make this better. Please...just tell me."

He narrowed his eyes and then arched an eyebrow as he considered her words. His eyes darted down to her heaving chest, the tight Wonder Woman bustier making her pert and full breasts seem even more lush. The faux-silver metallic edging of her costume was meant to draw everyone's eyes to that portion of the Wonder Woman uniform. But, in reality, it was the deep red velvet that covered her breasts that drew his eyes. He stared at it for several long seconds, almost a minute, as his brain sought to reconcile the memory that the fabric had triggered.

_A red velvet dress..._

_A black corset..._

_A silver knife in his hands, his palm curled around the ornately-carved handle. Cutting, slashing, and then wonderful, luscious creamy skin bathed in the warm, flickering warm amber light of a blazing fire._

"Whole," he told her in a low, watery voice. "I want to feel whole again. To bring all these crazy memories that are flying around in my head and tearing me apart...I wanna tie 'em down and make sense of 'em...to make sense of 'em the only way I know now, Bones."

He narrowed his eyes and shook his head with a throaty growl.

"Bones...or Bren...or whoever you are." Booth stared at her for a few long seconds. "I don't even know who the fuck you are, if I ever did," he grunted at her. "Who are you?"

Shaking her head at him, Brennan said, "You know who I am, Booth. I'm your partner and―"

"Bullshit!" he roared. "That's complete and utter fucking bullshit, Bones, and you know it. We may have worked together for the last two and a half years, but seeing as how I got this nice little service pack update to my noggin tonight, the one fucking thing I'm absolutely sure of is that you were never my fucking partner. Because you know what, Bones? Partners are a lot of things. Partners are honest and caring and they can always count on one another because they know—they fucking_ know_, Bones—that they've always got the other one's back. But you know what? After all this shit, if there's one thing I know now, we may've been many things, but we were _never _fucking partners."

Feeling as if he had just kicked her in the stomach, Brennan blanched even further in the dim light of the loft that was only illuminated by the flicker of her candles and the occasional flash of lightning through the windows. She took a minute, swallowed heavily, and then said, "I know you're hurting and in pain right now, Booth, but it makes no sense for you to strike out at me and say things that we both know you're going to regret later so―"

His face contorted at her words, flushing red in indignation as he interrupted her. "Don't tell me what I fucking know or don't know, Bones," he shouted. "Maybe you're right and right now I can't figure out who the fuck I am because you've dumped who knows how many fucking gigs of info in my brain and damn near short-circuited the motherfucker. But you know what? Despite everything, I'm still here and kicking, so don't fucking tell me what I know or what I don't know." Letting out a puff of air, he stopped for a minute to catch his breath.

When Brennan remained silent, obviously sufficiently chastised into holding her tongue, Booth felt some of the anger he'd felt earlier that had spiked at her words slowly begin to leech away. Looking out at the window as the original moment of quiet that had hung heavy between them stretched into a prolonged silence, he couldn't help himself as he felt an unfamiliar need to fill that silence with something lest he lose himself in the swirl of memories that continued to gurgle in his head.

"You know," he began in a low voice. "I got in my head all these things I did―things I don't think I could have imagined in a million fucking years ever doing but I know I did 'em, I just _know, _'cause I look down and the hands that are doing 'em are my own. All those things I've always regretted having done, that have kept me awake at nights—that was only the beginning, wasn't it?" He turned away and sighed. "The lives I took..." Booth swallowed hard and blinked, his dark eyes glimmering in the candlelight as he looked at her. "The people I've had to kill, you know, in the Army, and with the FBI. It's nothing, is it?"

Brennan was again silent. However, as Booth continued to look at her, waiting impatiently for a response, she knew she needed to say _something _even if she knew that anything she said would immediately be the wrong thing. At last, feeling a growing frustration of her own by her inability to exert any control over the situation beyond the initiating incident that she'd caused to start the whole downward spiral for both of them with a simple kiss, she spoke.

"It's not nothing," she began tentatively. "It's just...it's complicated, Booth. Very, _very_ complicated."

"Complicated?" he huffed. "You're fucking right, it's complicated." For a minute, he stood in tense, rigid silence, his brown eyes reflecting the flicker of candlelight as he surveyed her face.

"I always liked that about you," he said, his voice momentarily soft, almost reflective in its tone. "You're complicated. Multifaceted, right?" He paused, then said with a darker, harder edge to his voice, "But I had no idea how fucking complicated you really were, did I—at least, not until tonight, huh?"

His eyes narrowed as he took a step closer to her.

"You know, at least I have an excuse, right? All..." He bit his lower lip and kneaded it between his teeth as he shook his head, blinking away another memory. "All the horrible things I've done—apparently, right?—I was an animal. A monster. A vicious animal with no conscience, no soul, nothing to hold me back from killing and fighting and fucking and destroying everything in my path."

"Booth," she said, turning to face him. "Don't..."

Ignoring her, he cocked his head to the side and laughed sardonically. "But you," he said, his voice almost a sneer. "_You_ don't have that excuse. You've had your soul parceled into bits, but it's not like you've ever been without one. So what _is _your excuse, Bones? 'Cause I can close my eyes and remember seeing you gut two men right in front of me, in cold goddamn blood. Or the chick you beat and tortured for a week because she'd been fucking me." He hesitated. "Or him. Or whatever." He took another step towards her. Brennan tensed, sensing something vaguely threatening about the way he moved. "Hmm?" he pressed her. "I've seen a lot of shit, Bones. A lot of fucking shit, even before..." He pointed to his temple and shook his hand. "Before all this..." His voice trailed off again and he took a deep, heavy breath. "It doesn't make any goddamn sense. Make it make sense, will ya?"

"Booth, I will," she said, the reassuring timbre of her voice offset by the way each word trembled as it was spoken. "I'll explain everything. I'll help you understand. I swear."

"I need to bring it all together," he said. "And you know what? You're the key to making that happen, aren't you?"

Booth's brow furrowed and he stared at her, his dark brown eyes shimmering with frustrated expectation as his cheek twitched with the coiled-up tension in his gaze. His jaw shifted from side to side as he watched her watching him, and as his eyes surveyed the features of her candlelit face and the long line of her slender neck, he felt a raw tingling in the base of his spine and he felt an overwhelming pull of primal want that drove him to touch her, feel her and take her—the way he had so many times, and the way he never had before.

"You're the only thing that makes it all hold together and make any damn sense at all," he said. "You know—the constant, right? The only thing that'll put all the pieces back together. And I wanna be whole again. I wanna feel whole. I need to feel fucking _whole_. And I think that that can only happen one way, and that it's gotta be _you, _mmm?"

Booth leaned his head back and sighed, closing his eyes as he felt another wave of memories crash over the shoals of his mind, but this time, instead of fighting the gush of images, he took a breath and tried to relax into them. He remembered being in her bed in Chicago, leaning into his cold-chapped hands, his thin, sinewy legs between hers as he rose up into her, falling into the warmth of her welcoming embrace as he plunged himself into her moist heat. Again and again they came together that way, and each time they emerged from the experience woven together more tightly than they were before.

"It never hurt," he said obliquely as he opened his eyes and leveled his gaze at her, speaking directly into her deep blue eyes. "When we..." He swallowed, unsure for a moment how to call what it was they did. In a voice that was smooth and yet full of gravity, he tried again. "When we made love...so many times, it was a starting point, wasn't it? It created. It soothed, didn't it? It was always a beginning of something. It was always a balm, and it never hurt. It healed."

"Yes," she said, the single word uttered in a voice that soft but even. "Yes, it did."

"Well, you know what?" he grunted. "Right now? Right now, Bones, I think if there's one fucking thing I need to do, it's to heal," he confessed. "I need that, and I need you to give it to me." His deeply-knit eyebrows loosened and lifted up, his forehead creasing as he hesitated. "I want you, Bones. I've always wanted you. And..." His jaw tensed as he scratched the back of his head and thought about the events of the previous hour, and of the day that preceded it, and in particular, of the life he'd taken that night and the new-found memories of the countless other lives he'd taken in the past. "After tonight, Bones—maybe it sounds weak, but..." He pursed his lips as he felt his nostrils burn with emotion. "I think I deserve a little comfort, you know. After everything, I need..."

She blinked and opened her mouth to speak, but he leaned forward, pressing against her.

"You've gotta give that to me," he said. He paused, hesitating for a beat before he nodded to himself and continued. "Yeah, that's how it's gotta be, Bones."

She stared at him, giving Booth a look that was a curious mixture of curiosity and hope and...if he didn't know better, he'd say want―the same type of want that he'd spent a thousand days or more going crazy for feeling because of his want for her.

"I've wanted you," he explained tentatively. "I've wanted you in a way I've never gotten. I've never understood it at all...at least not before tonight.. I've wanted you more than I've ever wanted another woman. Sometimes that excited the hell out of me. Sometimes that frustrated the fuck out of me. But it always scared me, Bones. And now I know why. I know why...and so do you." He paused, licked his lips, and then nodded. "But I'm done being scared, Bones. I'm fucking done. So you told me I could have whatever I wanted? Well, that's what I want...right here, right now."

Tilting her head at him, even though she already knew the answer, Brennan gave him the courtesy of asking, "What?"

"_You_," he croaked. " I want _you_. I want you to give yourself to me. That's what I want, that's what I deserve, and that's what I'm gonna get. I want all of it, Bones. Right now. All of it...all of you...the whole damn thing. Understand?"

For a minute, neither of them spoke. He stared at her, in his dark eyes blazing with growing hunger, and she stared back at him, her light blue eyes rimmed with moisture as she watched, waiting for him to make the first move. As she stood there in silence, the tension in his body mounted: his shoulders tightened, his hands clenching and unclenching as his jaw turned more and more rigid with each passing breath.

"Should we go back to the beginning?" he asked her, his words sharp and edged with sarcasm as he reached for her hand, grabbing it roughly. He turned her hand over, stroking the bony top of her hand with his thumb, calloused from years of holding a pistol-grip, the gesture at once tender and possessive.

"So we can start again, hmm? Back then, you wanted me to take you because you said I owed you, isn't that right?" He laughed curtly, but didn't wait for her reply. "Now we get to start again, don't we? But this time, it's different: you owe _me_. After all the shit you put me through? _You _owe _me_."

He dropped her hand and a loud boom of thunder foreshadowed the seriousness of the move he was about to make. Quickly, reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his pocketknife, and flicked open the blade. He stared at it for a moment before he lifted it up for her to see.

"It's not like yours was," he said quietly. "No rubies or emeralds or sapphires or pearls making it look all pretty. But, the blade? The blade is just as good." He turned the knife over in his hand, the dark blade reflecting none of the light that shone through the window as a flash of lightning lit up the night sky. "Carbon steel," he said in a deep voice. "Hardened and heat treated." He grunted. "Like me, I guess, huh?"

Reaching out, he curled his left hand around the band of silver fabric that edged the top hem of her bustier, tugging her towards him. His tongue darted out of his mouth and lolled at the corner, his eyes narrowing as he studied the garment. After a moment, he pulled the fabric tight across her breasts and moved the pocket knife in one fluid motion, catching the hem of the material with the serrated edge of the carbon steel blade with a sharp _riiiip_.

The sound that the knife made when it cut through the soft material of her costume was very satisfying to him as he slit the heart-shaped bodice from her breastbone down to her navel. Brennan, for her part, worked to stay perfectly still as he moved the blade in a swift downward motion. But, when he pulled the knife away, it only took him a second before he folded it with a swift _click _and pocketed it and lifted his gaze to survey his handiwork.

"Fucking amazing," he said in a husky voice as his eyes skimmed up from the narrow strip of smooth ivory skin below her navel, over the soft, gentle curve of flesh that circled her belly button and up to the cleft between her breasts, which gaped slightly wider now that the constraining fabric was cut. His mouth went dry, and he felt a painful tightness tug low in his gut. Booth swallowed and clenched his teeth, his dark eyes narrowing as he felt his balls hitch with each moment he drank in the sight of her. "You're fucking amazing, you know that?" He shifted his weight from one hip to the other as he felt himself harden at the sight of her luminous skin, naked and glistening back as if begging him to lick it. "But it's not like that's changed at all, right? You've always been so fucking hot...so fucking amazing, huh?" he asked her. "You, driving me out of my goddamn mind, still―even after all this time..."

He pressed against her, reaching down and grabbing her hip in his large hand. He felt a heat surge through him, burning beneath his skin as he felt her warmth through his clothes, and in that moment, he wanted to melt into her, to merge himself into her and possess her completely. He raised his eyes to meet hers and licked his lips as he saw her normally-pale eyes had darkened, glittering back at him in a way that made him even hungrier for her.

"Fucking crazy," he growled as he slowly drew his tongue along his lower lip, a tingling in this fingertips reminding him of what it felt like to touch her skin. "You drive me so fucking crazy."

For her part, as he looked at her, Brennan began to shiver.

"Why on earth would you be shaking at seeing a blade, mmm?" he asked. "Best I can remember, you've always liked your knife... tickled me with that blade on more than one occasion...and come a lot damn closer to major blood vessels than I did just now." He arched an eyebrow and smirked. "Or are you shivering for some other reason?" he asked, his voice dropping a half-octave lower. "You want this, too, don't you? You want me to take you?" He saw her only response as a flash of want that flickered in her bright eyes, then faded from view as her eyes narrowed again. "Nah," he said. "It's not the knife, is it...we both know better than that, but even if it was, well―" He stopped and then gave her a small shrug of his shoulders as he added, "I've always been good with a knife...or, well...I was in the Rangers...I mean, if I was, in fact a Ranger." He gritted his teeth at the thought as it occurred to him. "'Cause I don't know what's real anymore and what's just some made-up thing in my head, right? The only thing that's real is this, huh? This right here." He looked down at her heaving chest and licked his lips.

Brennan bit her bottom lip at his words. She felt weak and powerless to do anything because of what she'd just put them both through in the last hour...all because of a moment of stupid and selfish weakness on her part. She felt a wave of overwhelming disorientation fall over her once again. Emotionally and physically, she was spent. Knowing she needed time to recover and catch her breath, but also realizing the tenuous situation she was in with Booth, she knew the next few moments and hours would be crucial for determining how their future―if there was any way that somehow, someway they might be able to salvage victory from the jaws of defeat―would play out.

Still, she realized that she wasn't strong enough yet to do anything until she could recoup some of the drain that using her powers in such an impromptu way had caused her. Trying to stall for time, Brennan did what she always did when she found herself not ready or not able to move yet―she merely stopped, hoping that if she could take a few deep breaths, she might feel well enough to face Booth's confusion and anger and want.

Looking back at him, she studied the man before her. Even in the dimly flickering candlelight, she could see the stubble on his jaw, and she remembered how he used go two or three days without shaving, and how his incipient beard would scrape against her tender skin as he worked her over, his shoulder-length hair tickling the insides of her thighs. A faint smile curved her lips as she remembered how one night in her tub, and in her bed, an ocean away from her native England, changed everything between them, and how for more than eighty years after that, he'd kept clean-shaven for her. It amused her that, once her deal with The One had taken effect and he'd literally walked back into her life, she'd discovered that he'd reverted to his old habit of letting his beard go for a day or two before shaving. She'd felt his scruff against her skin the night he kissed her in the rain behind his pool bar. She felt it rub her cheek a couple of times as he hugged her since then. The smile faded from her lips as she wondered if she'd ever again feel his stubble against the tender skin of her chest or the delicate porcelain of her inner thighs.

She remained quiet as she attempted to discern what his next move would be.

Booth opened his mouth and rolled his jaw to one side as he watched her, his eyes skimming the contours of her face as her slender, pink lips curved downward into a slight frown and the brightness in her eyes suddenly dimmed. Then he saw her pale blue eyes shimmer as a flash of lightning lit up the room again, momentarily silhouetting her, a window-rattling roll of thunder rumbled as the light faded again. As the lightning outside the window crackled into darkness, the candlelight of the room once more illuminated her face and he gazed at her, his chest tightening as he found himself looking at her in literally a whole new light.

Her face seemed wracked in worry, her lower lip quivering minutely as her tired eyes narrowed and widened again. Booth wanted to reach for her, to wrap his arms around her, to cup his hand against the back of her head, stroking her soft hair as he held her against his chest. Booth felt his stomach quench and flip, a wave of sympathy washing over him as another flash of lightning strobed behind her. He opened his mouth to speak when the thunder filled the room with a low, rolling rumble, drowning out the words he was about to say.

His brow furrowed as he waited for the thunder to fade again, and in those seconds, he felt his own frustrations rumbling in his chest as the storm roiling outside reminded him of the wave after wave of psychic chaos that had crashed over him in the minutes since he'd felt himself melt completely into the passion of Brennan's soul-swallowing, groin-tightening kiss.

_This, _he told himself. _All of this is because of her._ He took a deep breath and rolled his lips together into a firm line. _Why am I feeling sorry for her? _He grunted quietly at his own thoughts. _She should be helping me. I'm the one whose brain just fucking imploded tonight. Why in the hell am I all ready to ride in like Dudley-fuckin'-Do-Right to help her out when I'm the one who's been tied to the fucking tracks and run over again and again by this runaway train of shit I can't make heads or tails of? Bullshit. Bull-fuckin'-shit._

Tilting his head, he sighed in obvious disgust at her. "Aren't you gonna say something?" he asked her as he narrowed his eyes once more. "Seriously, Bones. After all that, you can't honestly expect me to believe you've got absolutely nothing to say."

Trying to take a few more deep breaths, Brennan chewed her chapped bottom lip that were still stained a blood red from the bright lipstick she had worn earlier in the evening as a part of her Wonder Woman costume. She then made a minute shake of her head by way of answer.

His scowl broadened his forehead and he stared at her with an intense flare of emotion that made her chest tighten as a sense of déjà-vu flashed inside of her. Brennan remembered the way his forehead would tighten, his brow twisting and crunching low over his eyes, which widened before flashing bright, their dark brown depths suddenly burning yellow as the demon inside would snarl forth. She thought of the thousand times she'd seen that forehead flatten as his brow knit hard over his smoldering eyes as he would sit and brood, ruminating over the things he'd done or thought he'd done until his dark mood descended over him like a pall and hung there for days.

"Great," he hissed as his jaw tensed again, and he rolled it slowly from side to side. "Now you've got nothin' to say?" he asked through gritted teeth. Seriously? Is that right? You finally decided to shut up after, what? Years? Decades? Fuckin' centuries?" He shook his head slowly, his temples pulsing as his frustration mounted, his jaw rigid and his teeth clenched so hard his molars ached. "That's it? You finally are gonna keep you big fat mouth shut? 'Cause you know what, Bones. I don't buy it. The way you're always yakkin' about this and that, I'm guessing you've been lecturing me about this, that and the other stuff since the time of the fucking Enlightenment, mmmm?"

He raked his fingers through his sweat-damp hair, sending its strands more askew as he growled at her continued silence. "You used to talk," he muttered. "You used to talk all the time, didn't you? It was like foreplay." He grunted as he remembered a half-dozen times she'd drive him to the point of madness with her seemingly incessant banter until the tension between them finally boiled over and he'd whirl her around, yank up her skirts and take her against the dark hardwood paneled wall of her London home, or she'd finally shut him up with a kiss, her mouth mashed against his as she pushed him onto her chaise lounge, quickly unbuttoning his trousers and shoving them down just enough that she could impale herself on him. "I could dish it out," he admitted. "I mean, sure, Angelus could be mouthy, but I never had anything on you. You always had to have the last word, didn't you?"

He pursed his lips, trying to make sense of some of the countless times he remembered her doing just that and then shook his head.

"Come on, Bones. We both know you never ever shut up. So, why get all quiet on me now?" he asked. "You just gonna let me do this? Mmm? Take you, the way I've wanted to take you for years, Bones? The way I guess I took you before, over and over again, for all those years?"

She was quiet for another minute and then finally told him, "I can't..." Her voice trailed off as she fought for breath.

Her shoulders slumped a bit as the world spun all around her once more, and she tried to get her bearings. The burst of magic that she'd used to get them from her lab to her loft had caused her no small expense. Once again amazed she could even stay upright on her feet, she struggled to regain her equilibrium as she simultaneously faced Booth's anger and demands for answers.

Forcing herself to draw in several deep breaths, she eventually continued, "I already told you...whatever you want...it's yours. Whatever you want, tell me, and I'll do it. Whatever you want from me, tell me, and I'll give it to you. Anything...everything. It's all yours...it always has been. But...aside from that? I'm not going to argue with you just for the sake of arguing, Booth. So...then...yes. For now...that's...that's all I've got to say."

"Huh," he grunted loudly as he pushed her out of the way with a rough shove against her shoulder. Booth stalked away towards the other side of the room and, spying a scrimshawed horn seated in a wooden cradle sitting among a slew of artifacts that she'd spread out over the cool light grey granite of her fireplace mantle, reached up and picked it up. He turned it over in his hands for a moment as if to inspect it, then huffed and threw it side-handed against the wall. "Dammit," he growled as the artifact hit the wall with a _clonk _and clattered onto the floor. "That's all you've got to say, huh?" he shouted, whirling around again to face her. "Because you don't want to fight. Is that so, Bones? You don't want to let me choose a fuckin' thing, do you? That's your thing, isn't it? Taking all my choices off the table. You won't even let me choose to fight." He pointed an accusing finger at her, his teeth bared as he shook his head, momentarily muted by his own anger. "I don't even know who the fuck I am, or where I came from, or who I've been with―except you, I guess. I mean, fuck." He glanced up at the ceiling and sighed, then brought his eyes back to hers. "I was doin' okay, you know**—**making my peace with the fact that you and I were never gonna be anything more than 'just partners'—yeah, and then all of a sudden all this shit starts flyin' through my head, and I don't know who the fuck I am. And that's all the fuck you've got to say? Hmmm? Fucking bullshit. All of it. You and all of it."

Feeling more than a little defensive as she watched him continue to wind himself into a fighting frenzy, Brennan crossed her arms as she covered her chest and sighed as she weighed the likelihood that she could talk him down out of a fight instead of directly engaging him. As she thought, she made no motion to move, her tired, heavy-lidded eyes blinking slowly. As he continued to stare at her, she shook her head with a deliberate gravity. "I'm not going to fight with you, Booth," she said. "I can't—" Her words trailed off for a minute and then she sighed as she said, the exhaustion clear in her voice, "I just can't...I can't do it. Not right now, okay?"

"Why not?" he sharply questioned her, his petulance growing with each passing moment. "Why the fuck not? I've never known you to back down from a fight. Never...either in all the time you've been my partner or...well, err, before."

Brennan looked away, not quite certain herself how to act in from of him. On one hand, she'd spent the last three years being purposely guarded in front of Booth when he'd been her partner and eventual friend. On the other hand, as Angel, she'd long ago become comfortable with showing vulnerability in front of him. Even then, she'd never given him an example that hinted at the full range of her powers, knowing the vampire was skittish about magic—especially in the wake of Angel's encounter with the Gypsy witch who'd cursed him with a human soul and damned him to an eternity of torment—and she'd used only minor magicks in his presence over the years, whether it was impishly tying him up as part of their sexual play, hexing young vampires who dared insult her, or using small quantums of energy, meted out in handful-sized bursts, to defend herself.

_But now, _she knew, _it's time._ Shaking her head, she finally decided that after everything else that had happened to him, whether he was Angel or Booth, he deserved the truth. Nodding at him, she began to explain to him.

"I don't think you understand how the major magics work, Booth," she said to him by way of beginning.

"Huh," he grunted in reply. "I'm not altogether sure you do either. All I've ever seen you do are sparkly-blue renditions of witchy little parlor tricks."

Brennan narrowed her eyes at the insult. "That's right," she said. "Until tonight, I've never used the full scale of my powers in your presence because I've always known how you feel about magic—especially after the Romani..."

Booth frowned. "Well lucky for me I finally get a little demo, huh?"

"You don't understand," she said. "That was no small bit of energy that I...that I used to get us here. I-I...I can't...I can't fight you...even if I wanted to, okay?" She tilted her head and licked her lips. "And, I don't," she said, her voice low, and her words falling slowly from her lips**.** "After everything that's happened, Booth, I don't want to fight you."

"Why?" he asked, unsure in that moment what he'd even meant by the question, but feeling caught up in the tumbling momentum of his own emotions, the words gushed out of him. "Why the fuck not? You said you would give me whatever I needed. So why not this?"

Snapping her bright blue eyes up to meet his, Brennan shook her head, "You may think you need this, but you're wrong, Booth. Fighting is the last thing you need right now."

Sneering at her, Booth growled, "Fucking bullshit!" Gritting his teeth at her, he said, "You don't care, do you? You don't give a flying fuck about me, do you? Is that it? You don't want me anymore?"

The question blurted out of his mouth before he even realized what he'd just said, his eyes widening at the bleak honesty of his admission.

After a few seconds, he recovered and continued to rant. "Am I just...what, Bones? What am I to you? Am I just...some fucking pet goldfish that you'll look at for a little while, and when I float to the top, you'll flush poor old Nemo down the fucking toilet, huh? Is that the sound I'm hearing? Are you finally trying to get rid of me for good like this since you can't take a stake and dust me anymore just for convenience's sake?"

The color drained from Brennan's face as his words tore at her with each angry syllable and her eyes welled up with tears that she'd been holding at bay for over an hour. For a moment, nearly buckling under the wave of nausea that washed over her as her chest tightened with anguish at hearing his words, she stood there in open-mouthed silence.

"What?" Brennan's eyes widened in shock as she unconsciously took a step forward. "How can you even say that?" she said, her voice raw as she looked at him in shock. "I've loved you for almost a century, and I did what I had to do to make certain you were safe."

"Psssh," Booth hissed dismissively. "Well, aren't you the big-hearted hero, making the ultra-existential sacrifice to save poor little ol' me from all the big, dark mean and nasties?" he spat back at her. "Sorry I didn't send you any daffodils this time to say thank you or even let you know I was coming here tonight...I guess I just _forgot, _huh?"

Brennan's nostrils flared as her cool blue eyes hardened.

"You have no fucking idea," she said, her voice edging higher as she ground out each word between her teeth. "Even after—after the bargain took effect, do you know what I had to do...what I had to put myself through?"

The hard look on his face cracked for a minute, betraying a look of hesitant uncertainty, before the defiant scowl on Brennan's face reinforced it.

"Somehow I'm sure, whatever it was, you got over it, Bones," Booth finally told her. "I mean, isn't that what you've always done? You've always landed on both feet over the centuries as I recall."

Narrowing her eyes, Brennan said, "Time and time again, I've protected you."

"Oh, yeah?" he laughed disdainfully. "Well, fat lot of good you did at that, Bones. Because if this is your way of telling me you were my guardian angel or some other type of bullshit, well, to be quite frank, you suck at it worse than Clarence Odbody...and he was pretty damn bad."

Pointing at him, she countered, "Yeah, well, you have a slightly greater need for saving than George Bailey ever did."

Booth's anger waned for a moment as he arched an eyebrow. "Well, what do you know?" he said sarcastically. "I'm impressed. Was it all reruns on the Discovery Channel one night last year and you had to resort to watching Turner Classic Movies? Poor baby."

"No," she replied, her voice deadpan as she remembered the night she first saw _It's a Wonderful Life. _"We saw it at that rundown old theater in the Bowery, remember? You and me. Two days before Christmas in 1946."

Something in his eyes softened briefly as they both entertained the memory**. **She paused for a beat and then continued, "I've tried to protect you, Booth, as much as I was able to in the last three years. Sometimes I did better than others, but I always tried."

Still not quite believing her, Booth scoffed, "Oh, yeah? Well, try me then, Bones. When did you work your dazzling magic as my guardian angel?"

Tilting her head, Brennan thought for a few seconds, and then said, "For starters? How about when that bomb was placed in my refrigerator, that first year we were working together. Do you know what would have happened to you had I not placed a protective charm on my apartment? Those burns, lacerations, two broken ribs and the greenstick fracture of your clavicle you received were nothing compared to what would have happened. It would have taken your head clean off, Booth." When he didn't say anything, she tilted her head to the side and said, "And, what about when that gangster, Gallagher, had you in that aircraft hangar in Virginia and—"

"I remember," Booth growled, cutting her off. "I was getting my face pounded in by that scumbag and his—"

She didn't let him finish. "Dad and I tracked down the bounty hunter who was after Kennedy. How do you think we got the information out of her that we needed to figure out that it was Gallagher who had you, not Kennedy?" Pausing for only a second, she answered her own question. "My powers, Booth. A fairly simple matter of a compulsion spell. It's quick. Nobody gets hurt and the subject never remembers a thing."

She paused, watching for his reaction but in the darkness, although she could only see the light of the candles flickering against his dark irises and hear a low rumble in his throat with each of his heavy breaths.

"But it's not just your physical safety I've protected, Booth," she said, cutting him off sharply. "I didn't _want _this to happen to you. And by 'this,' I mean..." She hesitated for a moment, kneading her lips between her teeth. "Just in case there's any doubt, I want you to know that I'd spare you if I could from the memories, the pain you're feeling. I've done everything I could, these last three years, to keep the distance between us from narrowing too much, to observe the line that protected your free will and kept these memories..."

For a moment, Brennan's words trailed off and her chest tightened as she remembered the twisted expression of agony that gripped him in the first few minutes after their kiss opened the floodgates of memory, inundating him with a thousand images of a life he didn't until that moment know he'd lived. She wanted him to understand. She wanted him to see that what she did, she did to help him, even if some of the individual choices she'd made were ill-advised. She wanted...needed his understanding, if not his forgiveness.

She swallowed and said, "I didn't want this—it wasn't supposed to happen this way, Booth. Last week, when we were in Sweets' office, and he began with that ludicrous psychoanalytical crap about accessing your feelings. Who do you think stepped in to shut down that line of inquiry, hmmm? Tell me."

Booth rolled his jaw from one side to the other and shook his head.

"_So, case finished?" Sweets asked._

_Booth sat impassively in his seat, his legs spread casually as he rolled a white poker chip between his fingers._

"_Yes," Brennan answered in a gray voice._

"_Congratulations," the young psychologist said._

_Booth blinked. "Yeah," he said._

"_You don't seem too happy."_

_Booth shot Sweets a dark look. "Well," he said. "Because sometimes, if you win, you end up with somebody else's pain and screwed-up life. You work for the FBI, you should know that."_

_After a couple of beats of silence, Sweets said, "Must be a challenge for you to access those feelings."_

_Booth didn't raise his eyes to meet Sweets' before Brennan suddenly leaned forward in her chair, her shoulders tense and brows knit low over her pale eyes which flashed in anger, their blue depths ablaze with a protective fury that was both endearing and attractive to him._

"_Okay, stop," she protested, her voice cracking with emotion. "You don't know Booth. You don't know me. You have a limited view of us based on superficial data you've accumulated on a standardized questionnaire, and a subjective analysis from talking to us that is not at all scientific." Her eyes narrowed and her square jaw hardened. "So back off."_

_The younger man's eyes widened at her response. "Just trying to help," he said weakly._

"_By questioning his humanity?" she snapped as she shot him a disgusted glare, her lower jaw shifting forward as she tried to contain the anger that she felt bubbling up in her chest. She felt every muscle in her body tense as she held Sweets' brown eyes for a long moment before Booth finally broke the silence, turning to her with a faint smile._

"_Okay, Bones, now you're going a little bit overboard," he said with a smirk. "He's just a kid. Right? I mean, the worst thing that's probably ever happened to him was he lost at Mortal Kombat."_

"_Are you normally this protective of him, Dr. Brennan?" Sweets asked, ignoring Booth's comments as he focused on the forensic anthropologist and her unusually passionate response to his simple questioning of her partner._

_Brennan hesitated for a beat before answering, her heart beginning to race as she realized she'd betrayed the veil of objectivity and distance she'd worked so hard to project to keep their past separated from their present and future. "We are partners," she explained, a bit of the angry edge having fallen away from her voice. "Our lives depend on being protective of each other."_

"_And you feel the same way, Agent Booth?" the FBI psychologist asked._

_Booth clasped his hands together and leveled a firm stare at the young shrink. "Sweets," he said. "I can only hope that one day you know what a real partnership is."_

Brennan winced slightly at the memory.

_A real partnership, _she mused. _Is that what we have...what we had? _She tried to ignore the ache in her chest and the painful lump in her throat. _Is that what I squandered tonight? Or, is it not too late to save this thing? _She blinked. _What we had? What we were? _She cleared her throat and brought her eyes back up to meet his.

"So tell me." Brennan prompted him. "Who stopped that?"

He stared at her for a moment, an undecipherable emotion flickering in his dark eyes, then swallowed. "You did," he reluctantly grumbled.

Pleased with his concession, Brennan nodded slowly. "That's right," she said. "And do you know why I did that? I didn't want that immature little quack to unravel the carefully-negotiated distance I'd tried so fucking hard to maintain between us so I wouldn't cross the line and break the spell that kept everything together."

"But you did it anyway, didn't you?" Booth asked with a hard, narrowed gaze. "Like you always did. You do what you want, and to hell with anyone else, huh? Just because you think you're right. And this was no different, was it?" Shaking his head he muttered, "Fuck me but some things never change." He pressed his tongue against the inside of his lip as he stared at her for a beat, his anger rising again as he felt the hair on his arms prick up as a strange energy seemed to crackle in the air between them. Shaking his head, he grunted and said, "All of it, all of that painful self-sacrifice was for nothing, wasn't it, Bones? Hmmm? Or was it all a big fucking set-up for a big Halloween shindig?" He grunted derisively and jerked his chin upward. "Huh? Were you softening me up for some kind of witch ritual? Torturing the fuck out of me, driving me out of my fucking mind, so you I'd be nice and ready for you to put in your cauldron, mmm? Well, it fucking worked, alright? Put a fork in me. I'm done."

Brennan frowned at his words. "You're done?" she asked. "What does that mean exactly?"

"I don't know!" he shouted back. "I don't know a goddamn thing, Bones. But I guess I'm done trying to keep it professional. Done being squared away. Just...I'm fuckin' done, Bones. Done with you and all your fucking bullshit."

"Look, Booth," Brennan sighed quietly. "I know you're upset, but—"

"_Upset?"_ he choked, cutting her off. "You have no fucking idea. My fucking brain is running a million fucking miles an hour like some kind of goddamn video kaleidoscope, and you're telling me that I'm upset? Jesus Christ, Bones. I'm not just upset. I'm...I'm so fucking pissed I don't even have the curse words to lob at you to do it justice. I mean, you lead me on in some kind of start-stop-start-stop mindfuck mental carousel for the last three years, getting me bent so far around the axle I didn't know what the fuck to do." He sighed, shook his head and pointed at her with an accusatory finger. "And you know what? If that weren't bad enough, because I sure as hell think most people would think that would be plenty bad enough for me to be fucking pissed about, but that's not the worst part."

Brennan was quiet for a moment as Booth looked at her, and when he remained quiet, she knew he wanted her to prompt him for whatever reason. Complying at last, she asked, "Fine, then what is the worst part, Booth?"

Nodding at her, he said, "The worst, part is, Bones...the worst fucking part of this Greek tragedy is that after everything...none of it matters. _None _of it fucking matters. Because in the end, here I am, so strung out I can't even fucking think straight." He looked down at his feet and muttered a string of scarcely-audible curses. "I hope you're fuckin' happy," he grumbled.

She shook her head sadly as she stared at him in abject disbelief. "Of course I'm not happy," she finally answered him. "You're hurt and in pain and it's because of me. And, I swear to God, Booth...if there's one honest truth you have to believe me about, it's that this isn't how I wanted it to go," she said, her voice thick and moist with feeling. "I tried so hard, Booth, to keep myself behind the line...that line...I didn't want to be any more tempted than I already was and—"

"You did it for _you_, then," Booth snapped at her. "Is that what you're telling me? Because if it is, if you did this for you...and not for me? Well fuck me, Bones, but that just fucking sucks!"

"I'm sorry!" she shouted, her anguished frustration finally rousing an energy she didn't know she still had in her. "How many times can I say it, Booth? Tell me, and I'll keep doing it. Tell me how many times you need to hear it. But, don't _ever_ think I haven't done this without a cost to me. Because, you know what? You aren't the only one who's suffered over the past three years. The only difference is I've had to deal with the torture on a daily basis instead of just finding out about it all at once."

Booth took a breath and swallowed, shifting his weight from one foot to the other as he considered her words. He felt his heart skip a beat as he heard the anguish bleeding on the raw edge of her voice.

Brennan was quiet for a moment before she asked in a soft voice, "Do you know how much it's fucking killed me to watch you these last few years?" A thousand or more memories played in her mind before she said, in a choked voice, "Do you know what it did to me? To work with you, to be friends with you, to sit there in the SUV with you...close enough that I could smell your shaving cream and your sandalwood aftershave—Taylor of Old Bond Street—the same brand I gave you for your going-away present back in '28, right after Christmas, just before you left and moved to New York. I bet you didn't even know why you've always liked that fragrance, never mind that particular brand...but I always knew why, and everytime you'd pick me up at the lab, and I'd lean in close, I'd smell it and remember with one whiff all the years, and all the times we were together. Part of me hated that kind of closeness, Booth...being close enough that I could hear you breathing and see the little bits of graying stubble on your chin...and all the while hold myself back even though I wanted nothing more than to throw my arms around you and touch you and taste you and and feel you and be with you the way it used to be even though I knew that could never happen because if it did it would be as good as me signing your death warrant? It was nothing more than pure hell for me...worse than Tantalus being tortured with an eternal thirst he could never quench especially because I'd already tasted how fucking wonderful the water was when I'd spent years drinking my thirst away—"

The words tumbled from her mouth and left her breathless in the wake of her outburst. She felt a certain relief at finally letting go and giving words to the frustration and pain that had become such a part of her daily life that the anguish itself became a low, round ache in her chest that she hardly ever gave a second thought to as she worked by his side each day and felt his absence each night as she lay in her bed, alone.

"The last three years have been hell for me, Booth," she said, her breaths heaving as her heart pounded in her chest. "Pure and unadulterated hell, just like I know it would be when I made the deal with The One, which is why He agreed to the deal in the first place. So, you know what? If you want to be angry at me, fine. If you want to hate me for what I did, I understand that. But, you know what? I'm not going to apologize for what I did and don't you _dare_ think for one minute that it wasn't without a significant personal cost to myself. I suffered every day, Booth...every damn day. I wanted to see you safe and happy...and for a while, that's exactly what you were, even though it killed me—it fucking _killed _me—to see you everyday and know that you weren't mine and probably never would be."

His eyes widened as he listened to the words gushing from her, each one of them awash in heartbreak as her beautiful blue eyes glistened with tears. Booth's lips parted slightly and he silently mouthed her name, his sinuses burning as he felt a wave of guilt crash over him.

"I wasn't yours?" he said in a low voice. "Why not? You've been sitting back, watching me drive myself fucking nuts wanting you, and you just hung back. Why?" The question fell from his lips in disbelief as his voice rose again. "Why, God dammit? Especially if, after all this time, you say you loved me? If you loved me, or loved who I was, or however the hell all that's supposed to work, how could you just sit back like that?"

"Because!" she replied passionately. "You know I couldn't do anything, Booth. You know my hands were tied. _You_ had to make the choice, Booth. I couldn't. It _had _to be you. I couldn't interfere in your life and affect your free will beyond what I'd already done. That was a part of the deal I struck in the first place. So even though it fucking killed me through all of it, watching you bounce back and forth from blonde to goddamn blonde, with Cam thrown in for some diversity to break up the blonde monotony. And, all the while, I had to sit and watch knowing there was absolutely nothing I was free to do unless you made the first move. But, you never did." She stopped and then shook her head as she gritted her teeth and added, "I suppose that it was greatly amusing to Him that He left your obsession with blondes intact just to torture me since everyone seems to know that your predilection for blondes goes back to the mid-eighteenth century."

Booth's mouth fell open as the significance of her words struck him. As a younger man, growing up in Philly and even afterwards, when he was in the Army, he'd dated women of all kinds—brunettes, redheads, and a fair number of blondes. But for the past four or so years, with one exception, the women he'd been with were blondes—tall, fair-eyed, high-breasted blondes. His brow furrowed and he struggled to make sense of what he had suddenly remembered. Although the timeline still was a bit hazy, if the woman who made him the monster he used to be was a tall, blue-eyed, high-breasted blonde named Darla, then...now it made sense...as much as anything made sense to him at that moment.

_Jesus, _he thought grimly.

Worse than the realization about the origin of his recent obsession with blondes was the sobering recognition that the woman he'd wanted more than any woman he'd ever met had, in fact, always wanted him in return. She'd always been his—his to have, and his to lose—but he'd always believed her beyond his grasp, and so he'd let his eye wander elsewhere. He thought about the nights he'd spent in other women's arms over the years, trying to fill the void he felt inside because he wasn't, he now knew, in _her _arms, and how he might've been able to have her, after all, had he only realized that he could have had her all along.

_Oh God, _he thought. He bit down on the inside of his lip and looked up to meet her eyes again.

"I guess I wasn't as good a negotiator as I thought I was," she said morosely. "Who'd have thought that the bargain you struck for your son Connor was better? I wanted you to be safe from the Senior Partners and the people who wanted vengeance on you for what you'd done as Angelus, to be happy, and to have a new life with new memories." She shook her head and uttered a dark laugh. "I suppose I should have been more specific that the memories you'd get would be happy ones, and not those of an abusive childhood and a military career in which you were a lethal killer who'd been brutally tortured as a P.O.W."

She pursed her lips, shrugged and smiled faintly.

"You know, I only realized my mistake after the case we had with the National Guard friendly fire incident," she said, her eyes bright as the expression on her slender-lipped mouth suddenly sobered. "Remember? When you finally told me about your past...I mean, your past as Booth?" She stopped for a minute and then smiled sadly as she said, "That was the first time you ever really opened up to me. And, and I was so happy for a minute...and then so said when I realized the true significance of your confession."

"_I've done some things," he'd told her, his voice slow and steady as he spoke to avoid letting the voice crack._

_She was silent for a minute and then spoke. "I know," she'd replied._

"_No, no, you don't," he insisted, his voice cracking slightly despite his best efforts to keep it modulated. Booth held jaw rigid and he rolled his lips into a firm line, trying as hard as he could to keep his emotions at bay. He didn't want to fall apart in front of her. He didn't want her to know how badly he hurt on the inside. He struggled to keep a vacancy in his expression, but the glimmer in his warm brown eyes and the deep creases in his forehead betrayed him._

"_But, it's okay," she said, this time being the one to be stubborn in her insistence._

_The chiseled features of his face tightened as he shook his head slightly. "Well, not—not as a secret," he said, sitting down on one of the folding chairs set out for the funeral. "It's not...I have to be, uhhhh, honest about myself. I-I...I have to be able to tell someone."_

_Brennan looked at him, the relaxed curls of her auburn hair swaying gently in the warm summer breeze. "You will in time, Booth," she said, almost as if she knew something he didn't that made her voice so confidently soothing. "You will."_

"_I was sent to Kosovo," he said haltingly, his voice low and broken as he stared at the grass at his feet, unable to bring himself to meet her gaze as he spoke. His words fell in groups of three or four as he struggled with his confession. "There was this Serb, General Radić, who led a unit who would go into villages and, you know, destroy 'em. Women, children, all—all killed because he wanted to ethnically purify his country. He'd done this twice before. I mean, we had facts. Proof. 232 people...just erased."_

_He felt his throat tighten as the silence threatened to swallow him up, but he took heart as he glanced up and saw her nodding, encouraging him to continue, her cool blue eyes open and without judgment._

"_I was the sniper sent in to stop him," he continued, his soft brown eyes glistening with tears as he spoke. "He was set to leave in a couple hours. It was his son's...his son's birthday. A little boy, maybe about six or seven. I can still hear the music from the party, you know? That song just playing in my head. Nobody knew where the shot came from, but, you know, they knew why it came."_

_He tried to steel himself to describe the part of the memory that cut at him most deeply, but as he began to speak again, his voice wavered, cracking on the edges as the words came._

"_They said I saved over a hundred people. But, you know, that little boy who didn't know who his father was, who—who just loved him... he saw him die, fall to the ground right in front of him. That little boy, all covered in his daddy's blood, was changed forever." He swallowed and sighed, his face wracked with pain. "It's never just—it's never just the one person who dies, Bones. Never." He blinked away his welling tears as he squeezed her hand. "Never."_

_Her chest ached as she heard the misery in his voice, and she looked at him, his features cracked with the pain and remorse as his bloodshot eyes blinked back at her. She placed her hand on his arm, a shock running down her spine at feeling his warmth faintly through the thin wool of his suit jacket. Booth covered her hand with his, his thumb stroking over the veins that criss-crossed the top of her smaller, more delicate hand, and they sat there in silence for a few minutes. She tried to comfort him with small murmured phrases, all the while cursing herself for failing to protect him from this existential sorrow that afflicted him._

"I realized then that I'd made a strategic error," Brennan said. She raised her eyebrows and smiled. "I got Him back, evened the score a little after He took advantage of my mistake. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to make it right for you—the die had been cast already for you in that respect. What was done was done."

For a moment, she fell silent, her gaze falling on his handsome face, his mouth opening and closing slightly as he seemed to be literally chewing on what she had said. His dark eyes blinked and swiveled up to meet hers in an unspoken question.

"What was done is done," she repeated. "I can't undo what I did when I made that deal or what I did tonight, no matter what we say or do now. All I can control...all_ we _can control...is what we do next...and well, after everything that's happened, I think you know...now? Now, you need to decide what you want."

Booth took a deep breath folded his arms in front of his chest. "So I get to choose now?" he asked, nearly spitting his words out. "After all this time, I finally get to _choose _something? And you're gonna go along for once?"

He took a step closer and cocked his head to one side, licking his lips as he scanned her candle-lit face. "That night," he said. His eyes narrowed as he ran his tongue along the bottom of his teeth. "That night we went out during our first case, and we kissed." A low growl sounded from his throat as he recalled the way it felt touching her lips for the first time with his—or, at least at that point, for the first time he could remember. "You rode away in that cab," he said.

"Yes," she said quietly with a soft nod. "I did."

"If I'd have followed you that night, back to your place," he said, his skin suddenly flushing as he remembered how he'd felt that night and how badly he'd wanted her. He remembered the way she tasted, her mouth so sweet despite the tang of the tequila, and how he could feel her hip press against his as his body roused and responded with each sweep of her silky tongue across his parted lips. It was everything he could do at the time not to let his hand migrate down to the small of her back, palming her ass as he pulled her against him. He winced at the memory of walking home in the rain, trying to will away a screaming hard-on as his shoes squished on the damp pavement. "Would you have gone to bed with me?" he asked her, fully aware that his body was responding again, howling with the desire to feel her in his arms, her hips snug against his. "Would you have...would you have let me stay with you...like that?"

Brennan nodded slowly, her blue eyes darkening as she stared at him. "Yes," she said. "Because if you'd come after me, there would've been no uncertainty...you did what you did because it was what you wanted to do. There was no coercion, no contravention of your free will. You would've acted because of your own choice, made your own move, so then we needn't have worried that what I always feared happened if I broke the spell—" Her words trailed off as she saw his eyes darken further and she sensed from the flicker behind them that his thoughts were racing.

"All those times," he said, his voice dropping another half octave as Brennan felt a frisson of raw desire tingle through her at hearing his words and, even more so, the passion in his eyes and voice as he spoke them. "All those times, starting with that first case...when you challenged me like that in the gun range, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to fucking strangle you or fuck the daylights out of you, right there against that wall." He shuddered at the memory. "Or that time we were in Washington State, with that weird goddamn bear case, and I danced with you in that dive bar, and it took every bit of fucking willpower I had not to get a goddamn hard-on the way it felt holding you against me. Or that first year, when we all got locked in over Christmas because of that fucking lung fungus, when I was just about high enough to think I had a chance with you, and it was only by some kind of damn miracle that I didn't try to make a move when I was sitting next to you when you were looking into that microscope, wearing that barely-there tank top that made your tits look so goddamn edible." He grunted softly. "I mean, fuck. Or how about me sitting in your office, after that stupid mess with Rebecca, and you told me that surely she wasn't the only option for satisfying my biological urges. All those times—you're sayin' that if I'd have made the move, you'd have gone along? All the fucking agony you put me through...all the fucking times I'd told myself a hundred reasons why I wasn't good enough for you, and why you'd never want to be with a guy like me...and you're saying you'd have done it?"

"Yes," she said. "In a heartbeat." After a moment, she opened her mouth to say more, but before she could utter another word, Booth growled in frustration and spoke again.

"How could you have just watched me suffer like that?" he asked, his frustrated disbelief clear in his voice as he looked at her wide-eyed. "I mean, Jesus Christ, Bones. I know I've said that a lot tonight, but how could you do that?"

She sighed again as some of the fight went out of her once more. "I told you already," she said softly. "It had to be _you_. It couldn't be me...no matter how much I wanted it to be because otherwise then...well, fuck, Booth. Then, _this _would've happened, and maybe it doesn't mean much at this point, but that was something I wanted to spare you. I didn't want to put you through that. I tried every which way to get you to come to me...but you never did. No matter how hard I tried, no matter what I did, it never worked. Nothing worked. You stayed in that safe little comfort zone that you developed. Nothing ever happened between us before now because you never made a move. You _never _did."

Booth's lower jaw jutted forward as he shook his head at her accusation. "Safe little comfort zone?" he growled. "How hard you tried? You know what? If that...whatever the fuck you did these last three years, Bones...if that was your way of signaling me to run and not hold the fucking base? Well, you know what? You're fired, because your signals fucking suck."

He scowled, peering at her from underneath the heavy mantle of a deeply furrowed brow.

"I waited," he said solemnly. "I watched, and I waited. For more than two years, Bones. I waited for you to give me a sign that you wanted more from me than coffee and diner lunches and stealing my fries and extended bickerfests in the Tahoe on the way to a crime scene. And you know what I got? Crickets, Bones. Fucking _crickets_. Not a goddamn thing. So don't fucking blame this fucked-up situation on me. I didn't choose this. I didn't want it to be this way. I didn't choose to walk away from the life I had...the life _we_ had, huh? I didn't want this life, this—"

He abruptly stopped and grunted out a laugh at suddenly realizing how long she'd sat listening in silence.

"So wait," he sneered. "Why are you all of a sudden just standing there just some kind of deaf-mute? You finally gonna let me have the last fuckin' word, woman? After all this fuckin' time? What the fuck, Bones?"

"I'm not going to do it, Booth," she said, shaking her head in response to him. "I already told you. There's no purpose to it. That's just wasting energy that neither one of us can spare right now. So, like I said, aside from going around and around in circles fighting with you, I'll do whatever you want me to do. Just tell me. But, I'm not doing that. I'm not fighting with you."

Booth stared at her for a long time, his eyes narrowing and widening as he thumbed through the deck of memories that had stacked up in his head. "I want..." He licked his lips again as his eyes skimmed over her creamy white skin. "I want you to let me touch you the way he did," he said. "I know you thought about it. I saw the way your eyes got all dark and sexy when I mentioned that night in the gun range when we were doing the Cleo Eller case. You still think about it, don't you?" He gave her a hard look, much the same look he gave her on the night in question. "You wanted me then," he said, as much for himself as for her. "You want me now." He paused again, then told her, "So give yourself to me the way you gave yourself to him. The man I used to be, before I was the man I was before. Mmmm? Huh? You know what I'm talkin' about here, Bones? Do you know _who _I'm talkin' about?"

She took a step towards him and narrowed her eyes as she closed the distance between them, the _click-clack_ of her stiletto-heeled boots echoing when they came down against the hardwood floors of her loft. When she was standing in front, her arms still crossed, she tilted her head at him and said, "You used to call me 'lass' then."

"Yeah?" Booth asked, leaning in close to her but then suddenly pulling away again. "Did you like it when I called you 'lass' then?"

She pressed her lips together but was unable to suppress a smile as her lips slowly curved upward and a faint hum sounded from her throat. "I've always liked it when you called me 'lass,'" she said. "Whether you were Angelus or Angel...none of that mattered to me." She paused and then asked, "But, the more important question here, I think...is did you like it when I called you 'sweetness'?"

He took a half step back and looked away for a moment, then turned back to face her. "Yes," he said. "I think I did. Am...do you still think of me that way? Or is he dead to you?"

"I never stopped," she said. "You may not believe this...but, you never stopped being one to become another. Bits and pieces of the new person were just grafted onto the whole. Angelus and Angel―they're still part of you, Booth. And..." She sighed as her eyes skimmed over the features of his face, which remained tense and contorted as his mind continued to roll in turmoil. "I loved you then, and I love you now. It doesn't matter whether I call you Angelus or Angel or Booth. You're all the same to me. Don't you understand that?"

Booth blinked, momentarily stunned at hearing her admission, and the three words he'd waited so long to hear fall from her lips, but as she fell silent again, his ears rumbled with the sound of his own pounding heartbeat. "But, I...I-I," he stammered before he closed his mouth and he shook his head. "No," he said. "No, dammit. I don't understand. Because I don't understand who I was. Or am. I...you know who I am. Who I was. I don't know fuck. All I know is you."

"What do you need from me?" she whispered as she leaned in towards him and let her breath fall on his faintly-stubbled jaw. "Do you need me to help you relive each and every kinky thing we've ever done? Is that it? Would that help? Because, I know you remember...the things I did to you then," she whispered. "Do you remember?"

He swallowed, again shifting his weight from one hip to the other as he felt a raw tingle emanate from the base of his spine and crackle through his limbs. He felt a fierce tugging low in his gut and he knew he was getting hard as a dozen images flickered through the back of his mind. His balls tightened as her words echoed in his mind.

_Do you remember?_

He did remember. Booth remembered a hundred times he'd had her, a hundred times he'd taken her, burying himself so deep and snug into her that he thought he'd never find his way out again, and she'd felt so good, he swore he never wanted to leave the mind-rippingly sweet comfort of her tight, silky warmth. He remembered the way her moans peaked when she came, and the way her release pricked at his skin as he followed her into oblivion.

"Maybe that's a good place to start, huh?" he said, his voice rough with desire.

"Which one?" she asked, a certain teasing present in her voice that he both remembered hearing many, many times over the years, but also was excited in the novelty of never having heard it before directed at him by her "Do you want me to tie you up?" she asked, tilting her head as she licked her lips expectantly "I think you remember that one, hmmm, sweetness? The first night? When you cut away my dress and corset before you fucked me on a rug in front of my fireplace?"

Booth froze for a moment as the memory flickered in his mind. He remembered the way the muscles of his arms and chest were stretched as he hung there, trussed up. He remembered driving into her, his knees pressed hard into the soft pile of the Oriental carpet. He remembered the way the fire warmed the skin on the side of his body nearest the flames. Shrugging away the memory, he rolled his eyes. "There'll be no tyin' anybody up," he said, a strange lilt to his voice that took him a bit aback at the sound of it. "I've been tied up plenty for one damn lifetime, never mind two or three."

"Then how about the one that came a month later?" she asked, clearly pleased at the familiar retort he gave her. "Then how about that one...you remember...don't you?"

He blinked, looking away and narrowing his eyes as he sifted through the memories that had surged back to him in the couple of hours since he'd pursued Geller, then a wicked grin cracked his face. "I barged in to your place, didn't I? Uninvited, though maybe not unwanted. And I fucked you in the ass, huh? I took you in the ass, and you liked it."

"And you summarized your intents beautifully," she told him with a crooked smile. "You said 'My cock. Your ass. Me poundin' into ya until you can't barely breathe.'"

"And you liked it, huh?" he asked again, his low voice somewhere between a growl and a groan as he felt his groin tighten at the memory. Until Brennan's kiss brought back the memory of that night at her London home in 1860, Booth had always wanted to take a lover that way, just once...to see if he liked it—and if she did—but had never had the courage to ask a partner for it. Now that he realized he _had _taken a lover that way, and that he'd liked it, more than he'd ever have imagined or would have been willing to admit, and that the lover who had been most enthusiastic about such a practice had been the woman who stood before him with a sexy half-grin. The thought of it nearly made him explode in his pants as he stood there. "I know I did," he admitted with a grin of his own.

"We've spent more than a century matching one another," she said, as she reached out and brought one hand up to cup his jaw. "But, you know the times I've cherished and thought on most when I've watched you fuck other women in the past three years? Do you know the only way I've kept my sanity?"

"No," he said, for a moment the anger fading from his voice and replaced by curiosity.

"You loved me once," she said, her voice breathy and wistful as it changed slightly as she spoke to him in a softly vulnerable voice. "You never said it, but I knew. I knew it every time you took me to bed and we moved like our bodies were made to fit each other perfectly. The way you whispered my name when you came. It didn't matter whether it was in a bathtub in Chicago, on the patio of your _pensión _in Mérida, on a leather couch in some law office in L.A. or in my bed here in D.C. before the sun came up. Those, Booth...those were the times that let me keep my sanity...being near you each and every day and yet never having been further from you in those times when I worked side by side with you every morning and every night."

"I want it," he said in a ragged, low voice, his heart throbbing in his chest at her admission. She loved him, he knew now, and she had never let go of the love she had for him. And he knew, as she gazed back at him, her pale blue eyes glittering in the candlelight, that for all the night he'd lain awake, his body twitching with want as he thought of her, that she'd spent the last several years feeling the exact same way. "I do."

He paused for a beat before he continued.

"I want that," he said to her. "I want all those things. All those times. I...I don't know if I'm the same man I was back then...but..." He shook a doubting thought from his head with a breathless growl. "I want that again. I want to put the pieces of myself back together―starting with you. Starting with that. I want to be whole again." He swallowed. "I want _you_."

"Then tell me what you want," she tempted him again. "Tell me what you want, and I'll do it."

Her eyes held his gaze for another long moment, then broke off, dropping suddenly to survey his body, which stood tense, drawn and ready. A smirk cut across her lips at the sight of his khaki slacks tented with his obvious erection, but almost as arousing was the way his hands moved, gripping his own hips tightly. Her eyes drank in the sight of his long, thick fingers, remembering how talented those fingers could be when properly motivated. Brennan smiled as her gaze washed over his veiny hands, up to where his strong, well-muscled forearms disappeared under the cuffs of his plaid shirt. His olive skin looked warm under the candlelight and she yearned to feel it against her own skin again. She glanced once more at his groin and made a little sound in her throat, grinning at the sight of him, by all appearances fully aroused and ready for her, as she finally brought her eyes back up to meet his, which now smoldered dark with desire.

"You want to fuck me as hard and as creatively as Angelus did?" she asked him teasingly. "Fine, I'll do it."

"I-I..."

"You want to cradle me when I come like Angel did?" she pressed him, not giving Booth a chance to respond. "Okay, I'm ready when you are."

"I'm not—"

"Or," Brennan said knowingly. "Do you want to do something entirely new that's just yours...just Booth's? Tell me. Whatever you want, I'll do it."

His breaths rose and fell hard as his heart pounded in his broad chest. "The table," he said impulsively, blinking as if he was as surprised at his words as she was. As the proposition hung heavy in the air between them, he considered it, then nodded. "You've made me dinner, and I've eaten supper at that table." His darkened eyes narrowed. "Tonight, I want you. On that table. However I want you." He paused, flexing his hands into fists as he shuddered with anticipation and hunger. "I'll decide...well...on the specific courses once I see the full menu."

Brennan considered his words and then, slowly, she nodded her agreement. Letting her hands fully fall away from her chest, she reached down and peeled the remnants of her costume from her body. After a minute, she stepped out of them and reached down to begin unlacing her boots when his rough voice interrupted her.

"No," he growled. "The boots stay on. Leave 'em on."

Brennan lifted her gaze to meet his from where she was bending over to unlace the boots and then stopped what she was doing and straightened her posture. She arched her back forward before she walked to the table and used her hand to sweep a broad arc across the stacks of file folders, binders, and spiral notebooks that sat on the table. She pushed them to the floor without a second glance and when she was satisfied that most of the table was bare, she turned around and placed her palms flat on the table. With a small jump, she hoisted herself up and scooted back with the granite cool against her ass. She resisted the temptation to shiver, and when she was situated so that only her boot-clad feet swung rhythmically off the table, she looked up at him with an arched eyebrow and awaited his next words with baited breath.

"Undress me," he said huskily. "The way you'd undress him."

She stared at him for a moment, letting her eyes roam over his body. He was still wearing the remnants of his 'squint' costume that had been torn and tattered and dirtied in the exchange before he'd shot and killed Pete Geller in the subway access area. Although he'd discarded the Jeffersonian blue lab jacket he'd appropriated for his costume, he was still wearing enough of his costume to be able to make it ironically amusing that he was having an identity crisis while dressed as someone he wasn't. She could see his long-sleeved blue and white plaid button down covered with sweat, dirt, and blood and surmised the white undershirt that peaked through his open collar was in a similar state. His khaki trousers bore similar smudges and stains.

She could also see the tear in his right pant leg where the .50 caliber bullet from her Smith and Wesson X-frame Model 500 that had grazed him when it ricocheted off of her costume's steel bracelet. The flesh wound had been treated and bandaged by EMTs at the scene, but now that Booth had demanded that she undress him with as much eagerness and aggression as had normally characterized her exchanges with Angelus, she was slightly perplexed at how to proceed.

However, as Brennan felt the cool air of the room rush across her naked skin and make her even more sensitive in that moment than she already had been, an idea came to her. Pushing herself off the table, she landed on both feet, her heels clicking as they hit the wooden floor and echoed loudly in the loft. Although no more than a few feet separated them, she took several measured steps to close the distance that kept him from her. Coming up to him, she reached out and grabbed a handful of his plaid shirt in her left hand. Twisting the dirty fabric in her hand, she pulled him to her in as careful a way as possible so that the brunt of his forward motion was borne by his left leg.

"Give me your pocket knife," she said when he was no more than two or three inches away from her. "Now."

Tilting his head at her, the pupils of his dark eyes narrowing as he grunted, "Why?"

"Because," she said, her voice shifting once again with a bit of protective hardness that seemed at odds with how seductive she'd been just a minute earlier. "You were hurt tonight...because of me—both when I grazed your leg with the bullet from my gun and when you had to come to your memories as you did," she explained. "You want me to treat you like him? Fine. I will. But, I'm not going to hurt you anymore in the process. So, _give...me...your...knife._"

He stared at her for another minute before he reached into his pocket, withdrew the object, and tossed it to her underhanded with a swift snap of his wrist. "You don't want to hurt me now so you want my knife?" he blinked at her. "My world...awww, shit...I'm really lost in the funhouse now."

Brennan lifted her right hand and caught the knife with a sure flick of her wrist as she ignored his poor gibe. She stared at it for a minute in her hand before she gingerly knelt down in front of him. Letting go of where she'd clasped his shirt in her left hand, she coasted the flat of her palm down his torso until she reached the waistband of the khakis he wore. Wrapping her long fingers around the stiff fabric of the waistband, she pulled the material taut while she used her other hand to flick open the blade. She didn't bear to look at him as she felt his body still. Quickly, she used a deadly accurate slicing motion that parted the garment along its right seam. She slowed her movements only when she came in close vicinity of where she could see the blood had stained the khakis a dark red when he'd been injured. Once she was past it, she continued all the way down to the cuff of the pants. When she finished cutting away the right seam, she moved so quickly that she'd already sliced through half of the left seam before Booth even realized what she'd done.

"Why do I have the feeling that you've done this before?" he asked her as he tried to remain perfectly still.

"Done what?" she asked vaguely, never taking her eyes away from where she worked to cut his pants away, careful to keep the blade a safe distance from his proud, aroused flesh, though the nearness of it, and her realization of how near she was now to being with him again, the way she used to be, was a terrible distraction of its own as she felt a pulse of wetness between her legs as her own body began to throb with a want so strong that it made her want to cry.

"You know," he nodded at her. "Cutting the pants off a guy?" She rolled her eyes at him as he muttered half in jest and half-serious, "I guess I should just be glad there's no power tools involved."

"I've done a lot of things," she said as she surveyed her handiwork and peeled the stiff fabric away from his legs. She frowned a bit when she saw the soaked-through white gauze bandage that the EMTs had taped to his thigh after they'd applied a mild topical anesthetic to the area. "And, I'm sure I'll do many more that you'll have some cause to complain about before things are said and done between us."

"Complain?" Booth blinked. "I'm not complaining here, Bones. Lemme guess, though...I used to be more enthusiastic about this kinda thing, right? I guess you're gonna tell me I'm into that...or, at least, that I used to be? The guy I was before...or was it the guy I was before the guy I was before...or, fuck—" He grunted. "This is getting too damn confusing."

Booth leaned over and stared at the crown of her head for a moment as she ran her hand over the blood-soaked bandage. Her hair seemed to have lost its distinctive reddish-brown color in the gray tones of the dark apartment, but he could smell her hair and her ginger-lemongrass shampoo. His nostrils flared at the scent, which sent a pulse of warmth through his chest for reasons he didn't entirely in that moment understand. He reached down, wanting to thread his fingers through her soft, silky hair, but found his way blocked by her Wonder Woman headband, which she had curiously left on through she had shed the rest of her now-shredded costume. Booth traced his fingertips along the edge of the headband before a soft grunt sounded from his throat and he pulled it off, letting it fall to the floor nearby.

"Bones," he whispered, waiting for her to raise her head so he could see her eyes in the faint light of the room.

She tilted her eyes up to meet his, but said nothing as she blinked at him in response with a clearly watchful look in her gaze.

"I've always been able to trust my gut," he said in a low, rough voice. "But I don't know what is real after...after tonight. Who am I? Who are you? What is this? Show me something that's real, Bones. Show me. Give me something I can trust. Because right now..." His sad voice trailed off and he shook his head as he stroked his fingertips over her soft hair. "I just don't know...anything..."

She was quiet for another minute before she brought her hands up to his knees. She rested the palms of her hands against the sides of his kneecaps and then coasted her touch up in parallel lines as she traced the tone and definition of the sides of his quadriceps femoris muscles, letting her fingertips ghost over the fine brown curls that covered his legs. She brushed her palms upwards until they reached the elastic waistband of the boxers he wore.

He swallowed as his eyes watched her hands.

"You know," she said. "The last time I was on my knees in front of you like this, I wasn't completely naked...although I know you probably damn near would've be tempted to sell your soul if you could to get me that way. Remember?"

"When?" he asked, his eyebrows knitting low and hard over his eyes as he struggled to sift through the gush of scattered memories. Booth shook his head. "I remember an office, but...I don't know where."

"There was only one time," she said. "I rather enjoyed teasing you with that fact that no matter how much I knew you wanted me to give you a blowjob, the more stubborn I was going to be to make certain that I did anything to you but _that_...except for that one time...I only ever got on my knees one other time and sucked you off and that was on a night like this too."

Booth felt his balls tighten again and a sharp tugging below his navel that told him he was getting very, _very_ hard. The memory to which she referred was still hazy and indistinct, but hearing his partner―and whatever, whoever else she was to him, or had been to him―speak of giving him a blowjob made his skin suddenly flush hot with desire.

Her fingers curled around the soft material of his boxers as she tugged at the waistband. She moved the boxers down his bony hips only a couple of inches as she heard him take a swift hiss of air.

Looking up at him, she said, "Is that what you want now? After I yank these boxers down around your ankles and rip those stupid shirts off of your chest...is that what you want me to do to you? Once you're just as naked as I am do you want me to suck you off, Booth?"

Booth leaned his head back and squeezed his eyes shut, biting down on the inside of his lip as if to assure himself that all of this was really happening to him, and to keep himself from losing it right then and there at the very idea of her blowing him. "Well, no," he said. "I mean, yes. I mean...umm, well...maybe you could just...ummm... work me over a little with your mouth and then maybe we can go from there."

Brennan had to purse her lips to keep a small smile from tugging at the corners of her mouth. She knew that the amusement she felt at his boyish uncertainty that was neither Angelus nor Angel, but pure Booth, would be the last thing that he'd want to be reminded of in that moment. Instead, she tugged at his boxers and lowered them to his ankles as she'd promised. She purposely pressed her chest against his cock as she stood up, letting it brush against the cleft of her breasts and all the way down to her navel before she finally pulled away. Grabbing a fistful of the blue plaid shirt and the white t-shirt he wore underneath it, she moved to tug them up and over his head. Booth barely had enough time to raise his arms as she stood up off her knees and worked to free him from the last pieces of clothing he wore.

When she was done, and he stood before her wearing nothing but his St. Christopher Medal, she looked at him and said, "Tell me what to do next."

Booth gave her a strange look. In all the sexual fantasies he'd had about his partner over the time they'd worked together, he'd never once imagined she would be with him, both of them as naked as the day they were born, and _she _would ask _him _to tell her what to do. He wanted her to take charge for a moment while he caught his bearings and figured out exactly who he was as a lover.

His mind raced with images, many of them still images or brief snatches of encounters he'd had with her, in strange places he did not recognize: a fair number of them taking place in a warm, wood-paneled room with heavy timbered rafters, sumptuous Oriental carpets, and thick velvet draperies on the windows; another a more modern apartment, with one wall of red brick and the others comprised of soft, textured plaster, and from her balcony he could see blinking beacons on the roiling waters of Lake Michigan; and yet a third was a very, almost ultramodern space outfitted with Scandinavian design furniture in black, gray, and silver with a fantastic view of some high up urban skyline, and in the bedroom, a California king sized bed and a navy blue comforter. All these, he realized, where places they been together, together, over the years that they had known each other.

There was one other image in particular that kept poking back into his consciousness. It must have been at the latter place, the postmodern, feng shui apartment with the million-dollar view of the...

Booth paused and looked down a the floor, then back up at her again...and he knew...this place, with the groovy furniture, it was Los Angeles. He recognized the skyline from a case he'd worked with her during the first year of their partnership, and of evenings spent on rooftop bars, gazing at the L.A. skyline. He knew that's what it was. So this other memory was in L.A., but didn't involve the apartment itself, but rather a car. A really sweet, bad-ass ride, Booth noted with a crooked grin: a black Dodge Viper, with its windows tinted a half-shade darker than the law allowed, sat in a reserved parking space on the first floor of the Wolfram and Hart parking garage.

Again, though, what drew this memory out of the recesses of his mind and made it real, the way it tugged at him, wasn't the sleek sports car that gleamed in his mind's eye.

It was _her. _Same as it always was, Booth smiled knowingly as he let the memory wash over him. It was _always _her.

_It was late at night, late enough that even the hardest-working mid-level associates had called it a night, knowing they could go home, crack open a bottle of port, log into email and track their time in six minute increments all night long in the comfort of their spaghetti-strap tank tops and cutesy Warner Bros. cartoon character hip-hugging pajama pants or MLB T-shirts and sweatpants._

_He was all alone in the garage, just him and his Viper. At least, so he thought until silent feet padded up behind him and a slender but insistent arm snaked around his waist._

"_Mmmm," he murmured as he reached his hand up and grabbed the wrist that lay against his hip, closing his fingers around it as he turned himself around to face her. As he turned around, he swiftly reached for and grabbed her other wrist and held them both as he looked into her glittering blue eyes._

"_Surprised?" she asked with a smile as she tried to wriggle out of his grasp._

"_I thought your flight was delayed," he said with a grin as she struggled. He knew that if she really wanted to, she could wrest herself free and pull away, and so her struggle was part of the game―the game they'd played for nearly a century and a half since the night they first came together. "I had that stupid conference call with the office in Dublin about a demon breeding program thing going on in Capetown, and―"_

_Smiling at him, she opened her mouth and shook her head slightly as she cut him off. "You know I try to avoid commercial flights when I come to visit you," she told him. "I hate the cattle call of modern commercial aviation. Taking the train was always so much more civilized." She flashed her eyebrows as they each remembered the time they'd taken the train from Calais to Berlin, and the way he'd taken her against the varnished wood paneling of their private car._

"_I remember," he said with a smile, loosening and then tightening his grasp on her wrists as he twirled her around and leaned into her with his hip as he pressed her against the side of his car. "Did you miss me?" he asked, his voice husky as he felt a raw electricity crackling from the base of his spine at her touch._

"_You know I did," she replied, raising her chin a little as he leaned in close, his lips brushing against hers before he pulled away with a grin. "Did you miss me, sweetness?"_

"_You know I did," he answered, then tilted his head and leaned in to kiss her. Their mouths met and their lips parted, and for several long moments they became lost in each other, their mouths clutching at one another with a slow, building desperation as their tongues twirled together in the warm, sweet space between them._

"_I haven't been able to sleep the last two days just thinking about seeing you again," he admitted._

"_You're so sentimental sometimes, Angel," she laughed before she kissed him again, savoring the slightly coppery flavor of his mouth that told her he'd just slaked his thirst with a tall glass of blood. It was a strange thing the first time she'd tasted it, but one she'd come to enjoy, if for no other reason than that it was the way he tasted._

"_I'm not feeling very sentimental right now," he said, his voice hoarse as he thrust against her with his hip, pressing her thighs against the Viper's smooth fiberglass door panel. "I'm feeling...well...it's not that I'm not in a charitable mood..." He laughed. "Because I do know that I'm feeling like giving something to you, but..."_

_Brennan could feel his erection through the thin gabardine wool trousers he wore. "You talk too much, Angel," she said. "Not as much as you used to, thank God, but still far too much for the present circumstances."_

"_Heh," he chuckled, releasing her wrists and sliding his hand down and over the round curve of her hip to the hem of her short skirt, which came only halfway down her thigh. "You dressed up for me," he said, licking his bee-stung lips as he slid his thumb under the hem of the skirt, squeezing her thigh before skimming his palm up underneath. Angel let his hand wander up under her skirt and a low hum sounded from his throat. "Your panties are wet, Bren."_

"_Hmmm," she murmured. "I wonder why."_

"_Oh," he laughed, pulling the trim of her panties away from her body far enough to thread his fingertips through her damp curls. "I think you know why. Is this your way of saying you don't want to go out for any late-night sushi?" He snickered. "I know a good place not too far from here that's open until two."_

"_Delivery," Brennan sighed as his fingertips played with her coarse, damp curls. "Delivery, I think...later, though. I'm not hungry right now," she said. "Not for food, at least. And I can tell by the way you taste when I kissed you, you've been fed and watered already, figuratively speaking."_

"_Mmmm," he murmured, withdrawing his fingers with a sly grin. "That's true. Maybe you want to go see a movie?"_

_Brennan reached up and palmed each side of his jaw, pulling his face towards hers. She covered his mouth with hers, kissing him deeply but briefly, before pushing him away again. "You've perfected your verbal teasing skills over the last few decades," she said. "But I'm not interested in that kind of sparring, Angel."_

_She let her hands fall from his clean-shaven jaw, noting the faint scent of menthol which made her smile. Ever since the night in 1923 when she'd found him rummaging through a pile of wood scraps behind a Chicago meatpacking warehouse and brought him home with her, cleaned him up and given him a menthol shave with a straight-razor, he'd always shaved with menthol shaving cream. The smell of it filled her nostrils and made her heart beat a little faster than it already was as she pursed her lips to suppress her smile. Her hands migrated to the waistband of his pants, and she quickly unfastened his black leather belt, unbuttoned and unzipped his trousers, then slid her fingers in between the waistband and his jersey-knit boxers._

"_So impatient," he muttered with a grin, gritting his teeth as she pulled his trousers down over his narrow, bony hips._

"_You don't want patience, sweetness," she laughed. "And I sure as hell don't, either."_

_His only reply was a low grunt as she tugged his boxer shorts off, grazing his swollen arousal in the process and soliciting a sharp hiss from him as she jerked his boxers over his hips and shoved them down below his knees. She gently pushed him away, which confused him for a moment before she reached under her skirt and slid off her panties, shimmying them down her legs before stepping out of them, leaving them just laying there on the concrete floor of the garage as she brought her eyes back up to meet his._

"_They were soaked anyway," she said, squirming a little as she leaned back against the Viper's cool black fiberglass. "This car is quite impressive," she said as she eyed his erection, jutting out from the coarse black curls at the base of it. "I imagine it's quite powerful."_

_Angel took a step forward, closing the distance between them as he spread her legs apart with his knee. "You should hear her purr when you really get her going," he said with a lascivious grin. "V-10, 488 cubic inches, 400 horsepower. Stiffened chassis for a better ride. 4.03 inches of bore and a 3.96 inch stroke. You really should hear her go―"_

_Brennan narrowed her eyes. "The only stroke I want to hear about is you stroking into me," she said roughly, the smoothness of her low voice long since lost to the hoarseness of desire. "Like right this minute."_

"_Huh," Angel grunted, lifting up the hem of her skirt with one hand and fisting himself in the other, giving himself a couple of slow, hard tugs as he gazed into her eyes. "Damn, I've missed you," he sighed as he leaned in and, drawing the fingers of his left hand over her cleft, parting it just enough to feel how wet she was, nudged her legs open wider with his forearm before pressing into her with a long, low sigh._

"_God, Angel," she moaned as she felt him open her up from the inside. She sucked in a sharp breath as he filled her, gently at first before closing the last bit of distance with a hard thrust. "God, you feel good..."_

_He drove up into her, holding himself there for a moment, less to give her time to adjust to him being inside of her again―though it was that, too―but more to allow him a moment to collect himself so he could really begin to move._

"_You feel so fucking amazing, Bren," he said, bending his knees a little and rolling his hips back before driving up and into her again. "Fucking amazing. Oh my...oh...wow..." He clenched his eyes shut for a couple of seconds as he got lost in the sensation of being swallowed up in her tight, wet warmth, then opened them again, watching her pupils pulse wider and darken her blue eyes further as he stroked into her._

_Resting one hand on the top of the hood and the other on the roof of the low-slung car, he drove into her again and again, firmly but slowly enough that he didn't press her too uncomfortably into the side of the car. After a dozen or so strokes, he leaned his head down and kissed her, opening his mouth to her and feeling her tongue surge into his mouth with a barely-controlled desperation not unlike the way and the rhythm with which he was driving into her. They kissed deeply and passionately, the grasping of their mouths echoing the momentum of Angel's deep thrusts. At some point, Brennan broke off the kiss because, while Angel didn't need to breathe, she certainly did. Her breaths fell in heavy pants as he stroked up and into her, over and over again._

"_Ohhh, God, Angel," she moaned as she felt her long-stoked desire―which had been building inside of her and welling up between her legs since she'd arrived in Los Angeles hours earlier―begin to coil tightly in her belly. "Ohh...ohhhh...ohh..."_

_She opened her eyes and she realized the sounds of her moans were beginning to peak as tiny sparks of blue static began to pop and crackle around her. She felt suddenly light-headed and then the sensation of free-fall as she collapsed willingly into her long-awaited release._

_Angel felt the electricity build around him, first as a vague tingle and then more palpably as a crackling that pricked at his skin. A flash of blue filled his senses as he stroked up into her with a soft grunt and felt her silky, wet folds clench around him, then flutter when she uttered a long sigh as her release overtook her. Seeing her shatter, her pale blue eyes darkening to a sapphire as she cried out, drove him to the edge of his own self-control and pushed him over the edge. He rolled his hips back one more time drove into her once more as the electric glow enveloped them both, the static making the hair on his arms stand on end as he broke, a loud, low grunt sounding from deep inside of his chest as his hot release pulsed into her._

"_Ohhh, Bren," he groaned as the last pulses of release faded, and he felt the prickling heat of the static flash once more, then retreat altogether. "Ohh, fuck," he sighed as he closed his eyes, trying to savor the last fleeting moments of mindless, boundless pleasure before the blue light dimmed, flickered and faded completely, leaving them joined and sweaty in the dark concrete parking structure._

"_God, Angel," she said again. A smile cracked his face as he realized it was at only at times as these that Brennan was truly at a loss for words._

"_Mmmmm," he murmured as he leaned in for a quick kiss. "Happy President's Day Weekend," he finally said with a laugh._

"_Oh yes," she said with a snicker. "I must say that working for a government-supported institution in the District of Columbia has its fringe benefits."_

_Angel threaded his fingers through her soft, auburn hair and kissed her forehead softly. "I'm glad you were able to make it out here for a long weekend," he said with a smile. "Gets you out of the cold anyway."_

"_Hmmm," she replied noncommittally. "I'd hazard a guess that if you'd come to see me in D.C., we wouldn't have been cold all this weekend." She arched an eyebrow and smiled at him, raising her hand up and plucking at his styled, gelled hair with her fingers. "Mmmm?"_

_He shrugged away from her troubling with his hair. "Hey, cut that out."_

"_You're using way too much gel," she clucked at him._

"_I like it," he frowned at her. "It works, so quit messing with the hair. And to answer your other question, I don't think that would have been a problem, no," he agreed, turning his head and kissing her hand just before she pulled it away. "That's never been a problem between us―you know, staying warm. Keeping things hot. We've always been pretty good at that, you and me."_

"_Even better than how lukewarm things got with Little Miss Grows Her Own Winter Coat?" Brennan asked, licking her lips as she blinked at him._

_Angel stared at her for a moment, and then a wry grin tugged at his lips as he said, "You know, the way you say it, I almost buy that you don't already know that the thing with Nina is don with. Kaput."_

_Shrugging her shoulders, Brennan said, "I know."_

"_And, more importantly," he said. "You were the one whose idea it was for me to sleep with her, remember? All in the name of 'gathering data and conducting a valid scientific experiment to get some proof' that even if I slept with another blonde, I could never feel about her the way I do about you, right?"_

_Brennan was quiet for a minute and then said, "I needed to be certain."_

"_I know," Angel said with a certain soberness in his voice. "I know you wouldn't believe me any other way." She narrowed her eyes and he couldn't help but smirk a little at the strangeness of her request. "I mean, it's not like it was a tremendous hardship for me because_—"

"_She was very persistent...and very blonde," Brennan said, this time smacking her lips at him. "She was, wasn't she?"_

"_She was," he admitted. "But you know...you don't have anything to worry about, right? I mean, that thing with Nina...it was fun, I guess, but—"_

"_You guess?" she pressed him with a faint snicker._

"_Okay," he said. "She had her moments, alright? But she's not you."_

"_And, you did play hard to get for a while," Brennan conceded with a sly smirk on her face. "Didn't you?"_

"_I did," Angel nodded in mock solemnity. "But like I said, since you made a big enough deal about it that you were gonna be gone for so long digging up Mayan warlocks in Ecuador, I did what I had to do to get the woman I really wanted back in my bed pronto. And if I had to twist the sheets with a buxom blonde werewolf to prove to you I could walk away from her, as wacky as it sounds, then yeah, that was a price I was willing to pay. 'Cause that's the kind of guy I am."_

"_Mmmm hmmm," she murmured. "Of course you are."_

_He cocked his head to the side, brought his hand up to brush the hair off her forehead and smiled at her. "You know she had nothing on you," he said. "I mean, she was cute and a little amusing, if kind of shallow, but..." He paused, gazing into her deep blue eyes before he shrugged and said, "She was in my life for a little while, but she didn't fill it—she took up space, but she didn't add anything. She didn't excite me the way you do. She didn't set me on fire the way you do. She didn't fill my head with new ideas or challenge me the way you do. I didn't lay in bed in the wee hours thinking about her or daydream about her." He leaned in to kiss her softly on the lips. "It was you," he said as their lips parted. "It was always you, Bren. It'll always be just you."_

"_Maybe it's a redhead thing, then," she said with a laugh. "After all, it is said colloquially that—"_

_Grabbing her hips and pulling her towards him, Angel tightened his grip on her waist as he dipped his head to kiss her again, effectively ending her logical if teasing rant about why he now preferred redheads to blondes...and always would._

Blinking the memory away, Booth stared at Brennan.

Inclining his head, he arched an eyebrow as he said, "We tried to make it work."

"What?" she said, though she knew what he meant. "I—"

Booth chewed the inside of his lip for few seconds, then said, "We tried to make it work. You and me...for eighty years we tried to make it work."

"We did," she acknowledged, her voice hesitant as she struggled to see where he was going. "We were trying to make it work, Ange—" She stopped herself as she realized that she'd nearly called him by the name that had been, for him, long forgotten and shrouded in the darkness of a mystical amnesia. "And, well, in the year or so before L.A. was sent to hell, we _were _finally making it work, in our own way, that is..."

He shook his head slightly and then continued. "But it didn't really work, did it?" he pressed her. "We were never really whole, though, you and I, 'cause we kept our separate lives."

Brennan looked at him for a moment, an open if somewhat wistful expression in his eyes as he stared back at her expectantly. "No," she admitted. "I mean, you're right. We never quite figured that part out, but—"

"Tonight," he said, cutting her off. "I can be whole again...and we...we get a new chance...the chance to fix what we didn't know how to fix before, right? Finally, you and me?"

She raised her eyebrows and glanced away for a moment as her eyes surveyed the living room and the leather chair, the Oriental carpet, the sofa and the knick-knacks on her mantle, all of which reminded her of the many decades they'd been together, even while they lived apart, and how over the last few years, these things all symbolized for her what she had lost, and yet what she hoped to have again. She nodded silently to herself, realizing that at last she stood where she had hoped to be—even if the means by which she'd arrived there wasn't what she had expected—then she brought her gaze back to meet his.

"Yes," she said, a firmness and strength in her voice that had been largely missing since they had arrived at her loft. "Yes, we can."

"I want that, then," he said. "To be whole again. To begin again. With you...us. And that starts now, Bones."

Then, resolved to move forward, he did so, literally, stepping forward with a movement so smooth and liquid it took Brennan by surprise. She found herself pushed back in the direction of the table. Booth used his hip to press her in the direction in which he wanted her to go and kept them walking backwards.

"Your eyes," he grunted softly when her ass hit the hard edge of her table. "Keep looking at me, Bones. I want to see your eyes."

He reached out and grabbed her hips, digging his fingers into the softness of her skin before he lifted her on top of the table with a grunt. She began to scoot back towards the center of the table, and he followed her, moving like quicksilver.

"No you don't," he muttered. "Come 'ere."

Brennan opened her legs, allowing Booth to move between them as he crawled towards her. He covered her body with his and pressed down onto her as he tilted his head towards her neck.

"I've dreamed of this," he whispered to her, his voice raspy as he spoke. "I've dreamed of covering your body with mine. I've dreamed about touching you, tasting you, taking you. Tell me I can."

Moving her head, Brennan sought out his eyes as she whispered in a throaty drawl, "You can. Do it. I want you to do it."

"Tell me you want me," he whispered again as he stared at her. "_Tell me. _Tell me you want me."

"I want you," she nodded. "I've _always _wanted you."

"Booth," he grunted at her. "Say it. Say my name. Right now, Bones. Say _my _name."

Reaching out, she coasted her hands over his muscular shoulders. She waited until she was looking in his eyes and then smiled when she said, "Booth."

For a second, he stopped and tilted his head at him, his dark eyes heavy-lidded with lust and with desire and want. He blinked as he savored the sensation of hearing her _finally _whisper his name like a lover would. It sent a shot of warm tingling pleasure from the tips of his toes to the ends of his hair and back again.

At last, he smacked his lips in appreciation as he nodded at her and demanded, "Say it again."

Her lips curved into a strange and yet entirely familiar smile as she nodded and leaned up to him as she whispered in his ear, "Booth."

Spurred on by hearing her utter _his_ name, he reached for her mouth. As soon as her soft lips were pressing against his, he tried to push out every image—real or imagined—of any kiss they'd shared before that moment. For him, he needed to have nothing exist for either one of them beyond _that _moment in time. He was hungry for her in a way he couldn't understand and acted instinctively as he used his tongue to press between her lips. She opened her mouth wider as soon as she felt him demanding entrance, but he told tell she was holding back when her tongue didn't dart out to meet his at the halfway mark or even push into his mouth. Instead, she let him set the pace as he moved his tongue in a swiping motion over the profile of her lower jaw's teeth before he tilted his head and pressed harder against her to be able to sweep further back into her mouth. He tasted and touched everything, feeling his arousal grow more painful with each taste of her that he took. At one point, her tongue lifted to meet his, and he felt his balls tighten when she made a rough purring sound in the back of her throat.

Booth felt a lightheadedness as he reluctantly pulled away from her when the need for oxygen made him draw back. Still, he made an effort to maintain eye contact with her to both gauge her reaction to the kiss. When he saw her normally crystal blue eyes heavily clouded over with desire, he felt a stab of renewed pleasure.

Smiling, he said, "Well?"

She chuckled and reached for him again as she said, "Again."

He swallowed a stupid grin as he saw her bright blue eyes darkened with want of him. For some reason, despite her prior assurances, he needed to know that she knew who she was with and who it was who was making her feel that way. "Why?" he rasped.

"Because," she said simply. "I need you, Booth. I need you, and I want you. _You_. Just you."

As she reached for him, she scooted backward once again, sliding her ass along the stone of her tabletop, giving them more room to maneuver. This time, he didn't protest, but followed her with a grunt as he climbed up on the table. He winced a bit when he accidentally put too much weight on his wounded leg, but quickly shrugged it off as he shifted slightly to better distribute his weight on his good leg. He followed her, drawn like a magnet to steel, as he used his good knee to push her already opened legs further apart. He felt his heart skip a beat as he felt her melt against his touch as he pressed his body against hers.

"Soft," he murmured. "So soft...and so warm." He groaned against her as he felt her wrap her legs around his waist. "Oh, God, Bones."

"Booth," she whispered as she reached up and wrapped her arms loosely around his neck. Pulling him down to her, she whispered his name again when her lips were no more than an inch or two from his ear. "Booth..." She waited until she saw that his own heavy-lidded eyes were focused on her.

"Huh?"

"I know," she said as she shifted so that she could twist her hips lightly against his, grinding against him. "I know," she repeated.

"Know...what?" he groaned, his jaw tense as he stared at her and realized that she was already driving him wild, and he wasn't even inside her yet.

"I know...who...who I'm...who I'm with," she whispered, as she brought her lips to his cheek and began to kiss a line along the firm edge of his taut jaw. "I know it's _you_..." she whispered in-between kisses. "Just you..." she told him in a voice that was so silky and smooth in its soft velvety caress that he wanted to shiver in response to each word she uttered. "And that's all I want...you're all I want. Just you, Booth. Just you."

* * *

**-tbc-**

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**A/N2: **So, how about them apples? We think it is now safe to say that we are firmly in the world of Brennan and Booth just as Booth is firmly inside Brennan ::pause...snicker:: Yes, bad joke, we know. But after 130k, we couldn't help it. So is that how everyone expected it to go? Wonder what will happen next? The ball, as Bren said, is in Booth's court. Although, keep in mind, he's definitely _not_ the same man he was before he had c. 250 years of memories of being a walking libido with an Irish brogue as he maimed and killed before he repented and became the brooding vampire we all know and love. We think the interesting question is now...how do Angelus, Angel, and Booth all mesh into the same personality at the same time? Intrigued to find out? Then please let us know and many thanks to all those who've supported this wacky and longwinded twisted epic cycle of stories. It means more to us than we can say.~


	8. Part V: Beginning Again

**Echoes True and False**

**By:** Lesera128 & dharmamonkey

**Rated: **M

**Disclaimer: **Here we posit our normal rigmarole. No, we don't own anything from _Bones _or _Angel... _or anything else. Yes, we're wreaking what havoc we can with these characters that we don't own to create an awesome story. But, since it's only for the purposes of creative enjoyment and amusing distraction, we think we're okay. Are there any other questions? No? ::blinks:: Good. Then moving on―

**A/N: **So, here it is. The final part to this epic (and longest part of the nine-story cycle, by the way) is now here. Thus, without further adieu...well, thanks to those who read and reviewed the previous parts...and to those who haven't, _please please please_ consider de-lurking and dropping us a note (even if it's brief) to let us know what you've thought. Now, on with the scintillating finale―

**Unf Alert: **Yup, for the last part it still applies. We mean, come on, people, this is a _dharmasera _work after all. So, consider yourself forewarned.

* * *

**Part V: Beginning Again**

* * *

Booth felt his breath catch in his throat as he turned his head so that his greedy lips could seek out hers. As their mouths met, he pressed his face tightly against hers as his tongue raced out from between his lips and aggressively demanded entrance. His tongue pressed forward, attempting to force his way between the partially-closed softness of her thin pink lips. Brennan brooked no significant resistance before she opened her mouth wide, and her own tongue reached for his as they danced in a slick tangle of twists and twirls as they kissed in a way that made it seemed that they'd never shared a kiss before—whether as Brennan and Angelus, Brennan and Angel, or even Brennan and Booth. It was almost as if it was a first kiss that marked a moment of change and a point of no return for the two.

Lifting her back up off the table, she pressed herself against him. She felt a frisson of electric excitement flash through her as she rubbed her breasts against his muscular chest while they kissed. After several moments, the two continued to grasp and grope against one another, kissing as if their very lives depended upon it. When Booth's hands went to her hips, and he stroked the creamy skin that covered the silky flesh over the gentle swell of her curves, he felt a strong and persistent heaviness in his balls that reminded him that, as much as he wanted to draw this out as much for his own benefit as for hers, practical concerns had already determined how much longer he could last—which a very tiny part of his still-rational brain knew to be very short considering the fact that he wasn't even inside her yet.

Almost as if she was reading his mind, Brennan relaxed her arms' hold on his neck and let one of her hands fall away from him. Quite sneakily, as Booth wasn't quite certain what had happened before she'd managed to do it, Brennan managed to weave her hand between their already flushed and sweaty bodies. Her long and slender fingers followed the curve of his waist until it could dip lower, and she reached for him. Grabbing him in her hand, she wrapped her fingers around his glistening and swollen tip so that she could guide it to her wet hole. With a small groan, as she relished the long-missed sensation, Brennan let her hand fall away when she'd lined him up at her entrance.

Bringing her other hand up to cup his jaw, she said, "It...has...to...be...you." Swallowing, she licked her lips as she said, "Your choice. You, Booth. I want you, but you have to be the one to push us forward. Free choice, free will. You...and you alone."

Booth stared into her eyes for a long moment, some echo in his mind recognizing the hum in her eyes that was cloaked beneath the electric blue color her irises had taken on since she'd pulled him towards her on the table. His tongue lolled at the corner of his mouth as he swallowed, then gave her an answer with a sharp thrust of his hips as he drew back and then surged forward, not stopping until he was buried to the hilt inside her.

Brennan moaned as she felt him plunge into her, the throaty purr escaping her throat as her back collapsed on the table and she let her arms fall to her sides in extension so they rested off the edge of the table. Her sweaty brow furrowed as she licked her parched lips and then swallowed again, arching her back up against Booth's body. She took advantage of her slight shift in position to twist their joined bodies just a couple of inches so that he slid even further than either one of them thought possible as his balls suddenly smacked against her ass.

"Booth—" she whispered. "Oh, God, _Booottthhh_."

"Oh my God, Bones," he gasped as he rolled his hips back and stroked into her, trying to keep his eyes open as much as possible but finding himself so overwhelmed by the sensation of finally being inside of her—again, and yet for the first time—that he couldn't help but squeeze them tightly shut each time he bottomed out inside of her. He leaned heavily into his arms as he tried to keep his weight off his injured leg and his bony knees, which offered little protection from the hard stone surface of her table.

Booth arched his back and looked down at where they were joined, watching himself for a few moments as he ground into her before a long, soft moan escaped Brennan's mouth and drew his attention back to her face. He drove up and into her, firmly and slowly as he tried to savor the sensation of her tight, wet warmth opening up for him and enveloping him, and he gazed into her eyes, which seemed to him like two pools of shimmering water, bright and blue, and he imagined himself diving into them with each plunging stroke.

"Oh, God, Booooth," she groaned again as she jerked her hips up to meet each of his strokes, her hands sliding around the back of his narrow hips and palming the sides of his ass. "So good," she whispered as her fingers spread, fanlike, over the round, muscular flesh of his ass, her fingertips pressing into his skin as he quickened his pace and began thrusting harder into her. "So damn good...missed it...missed you. So good."

"Mine," he grunted as something about the peaking of her ecstatic moans set off a long-suppressed sense of possessiveness on his part. He couldn't help but feel as if he wanted to mark her, to claim her, and make her his, and his rhythm became more punctuated, his strokes sharper as he drove faster and deeper into her. Brennan's neck craned back as she sighed at feeling him possess her this way, exposing the long plane of her ivory neck. A memory flickered before Booth's eyes of seeing her neck exposed to him and the way he had sunk his teeth into it, but the memory faded as quickly as it appeared, and Booth brought his focus back to the present, his mouth gaping open as he grunted quietly with each driving stroke.

"Yesssss," she hissed. "Yours...always yours, Booth." Her eyes flashed brightly as a pale blue light pulsed and crackled in the space between them, causing the hair on the back of his neck to stand on end as the energy began to prick at his skin. "Just yours."

Hearing her words and feeling the blue glow flickering between them emboldened him, causing him to surge even more powerfully into her. "Mine," he growled again as he sent himself as deeply into her as he could, his jaw tensing as he felt her body tighten around him. "Always," he murmured, jerking up into her and holding himself there as he heard his partner's long sigh herald her imminent release. "Always mine."

"Ohhhh," she moaned, her fingers pressing into his ass as she pulled him into her. "Oh, my God...oh, my God...oh my God...ohhh...ohhhhh...ohhhhhhh, _fuck!" _The azure glow flashed brightly and her skin broke out in goose pimples as the energy tingled in the air around them. She squeezed his ass again as her body tensed around him one last time, holding him against her as she broke, her muscles quivering around him as her teeth clenched, her lips curled back, her eyes fluttered shut and she cried out his name. _"Boooooth!"_

Feeling her shatter around him and the flash of blue slowly dimmed as her trembling release faded, Booth knew he wouldn't last much longer. As soon as her hands released their grip on his ass and fell away, he took a deep breath and drew his hips back, looking down at the place where they were joined and staring, transfixed, as he watched his glistening flesh stroke into her and his dark, nearly black curls meet her warm auburn ones. He tucked his chin against his chest and growled as he jerked deeply into her one, twice, and a third time before the cool blue light flashed brightly again and he himself broke.

"Bren—!"

He then grunted loudly as he shuddered and came, flooding her as he pressed himself into her one last time, holding himself there until the last warm pulses of his release faded.

"Oh, God," he rasped as he opened his eyes and found her looking up at him with heavy-lidded eyes and a lazy smile.

Booth stood arched over her, leaning into his hands with much of his weight as his warm eyes fluttered lazily in the wake of his release. His heart was pounding in his ears he couldn't hear the sound of his own heaving breaths, but he could feel himself sucking in air as if he'd just surfaced from a fifty-foot freedive. He blinked a couple of times to clear away the blur, and saw Brennan laying beneath him, her own chest rising and falling with heavy breaths as she stared up at him with bright if heavy-lidded eyes.

Another bolt of lightning fractured the sky outside, and only seconds later the room—which had been silent in the minutes after their love, filled only with the sound of their breathing as they coasted down from their respective highs—was suddenly filled with the rumble of thunder as another bolt of lightning cracked nearby, booming loudly and rattling the window panes. Booth glanced over at the old school clock on the dining room wall, its sepia-toned face briefly illuminated as he narrowed his eyes and read the time. It was 4:47, and as the sound of the thunder faded, he could hear the clock's faint ticking emerge as the second hand swept its face, tugging Booth from his daze as he brought his warm-eyed gaze to met hers.

He felt a tingle, a surge of energy roll up his spine, as he felt again the sensation he'd felt a hundred times before: _déjà vu_. This time, as he heard the faint murmur in his ears warble louder and louder until it became a solid hum, he felt something else. He knew he'd been here before—between her silky, ivory thighs, buried balls-deep in her, his body relaxing and softening as he rode out that last unraveling threads of his release—but there was something different this time. This time, he'd made love to her as a man, a living, breathing mortal man, doing so—not out of desperation the way he had when he had after arriving at her D.C. apartment after returning from spending a year in hell with the rest of L.A., and not with an anguished heart the last few times he did in the last hours before the memory spell took effect—knowing that he was finally free to love her the way he'd wanted to for so long. He shivered at the thought that this was the first of countless times he would be able to make love to her, to show her at last what she meant to him.

_The first..._

Booth's breath hitched in his throat as his mind wrapped itself around the idea that he—_he_, Seeley Joseph Booth—had just made love to her—_her, _Dr. Temperance Brennan...his friend and partner—for the first time.

_Oh God, _he thought_. Fuck...what did we just do?_

"Bones?" he asked, glancing down to where they were still joined, unable―or unwilling―in that moment to move. "I...oh, God, what the hell...I, uhhh...I mean...I don't know what just...what did we...I mean...oh, God...I can't believe that I just...that we...oh, shit..."

Brennan stared at him for a long moment, and as she looked into his eyes, she couldn't bring herself to look away. After a minute, she saw a series of emotions cross his face: confusion, fear, anxiety, and panic, and somewhere, deep down, amid it all, an abiding connection—love—that lightened his lust-darkened eyes to the warm, rich color of milk chocolate. She cracked her back with a small grimace as she used her forearms to push herself up so that only a few inches separated her face from his. Lifting a hand, she saw his eyes dart to the side as they watched her arm move. He winced as she lifted it, almost in fear of what she was about to do. She shook her head slightly, almost as if she wanted to both reassure and chastise him for his response in the same moment. Bringing the back of her hand to his cheek, she caressed it using a rhythmic motion, moving back and forth several times as she used short strokes to establish some type of pattern. After a minute, she leaned in closer to him and tilted her head, so there could be no doubt what she wanted from him. She pressed her lips to his for a minute, a soft, tender kiss which she let speak in response for her.

For a few seconds, Booth felt her lips quiver against his and he didn't move or open his mouth as the blood roared in his ears, his mind still reeling from the realization that he had just made love to her, wildly and feverishly, on the top of her dining room table. But after a few moments, the roaring in his ears seemed to die down to a simmer, and his nostrils filled with the faint scent of her ginger shampoo as he slowly parted his lips and accepted her kiss. Their mouths moved together, slowly at first, barely grasping at one another before he deepened the kiss, clutching at her mouth with his lips as his tongue sought hers out. After a minute, he pulled away, a little breathless but more resolute than he had been just moments before.

"Better?" she asked, when they pulled apart once again.

"Yeah," he replied, his voice hoarse as he gazed into her eyes. "I don't...I can't believe I...we did it...I mean, like that. I mean..." He paused with a soft, awkward laugh. "I mean, I've wanted to...well, for a long time, but I can't believe..." Booth's eyes fell to the table over which he was still leaning. "That's not what I'd, you know, had in mind, ummm...for our first time."

She was quiet for a minute as she considered the revelation―and confirmation that as she's long suspected, her partner had spent time fantasizing about her and thinking about her in a sexual way―and then nodded at him. "Help me down?" she asked. "I don't know about you, but if I don't move now, my back is going to be more wrecked than yours is on a bad day."

"Oh," Booth said, pushing himself off the table and taking a step back, wincing slightly as he felt himself slip out of her. He extended his hand to her. "Come on," he said. "You okay?"

"I will be," she answered. "As soon as I can get out of these damn boots, and...I think―" She stopped, narrowed her eyes and then gave him a small smile. "Come on." She gestured with her head towards the kitchen.

He helped her down and watched her stand and struggle a bit to get her bearings. He arched an eyebrow as he thought about what she'd just said moments earlier. "Wrecked?" he asked. "I don't think I've _ever _heard you use that word."

"Well," she said, glancing over her shoulder at him. "I'm not completely incapable of using colloquialisms, despite what I might've led you to believe otherwise, Booth." She paused and after a moment added, "Though doing so made it easier to keep you―and just about everyone else I encountered in my life―at arm's length and away from my secrets after all those years."

"What?" he asked, arching an eyebrow in confusion. "Really?"

Standing up on her feet, she wobbled for a minute as she felt the tell-tale pin-pricks in her lower extremities signal that circulation was returning the blood flow to her legs. After a minute, she cracked her back once more before she began to walk towards the kitchen. If it seemed at all odd to her that she was walking into her kitchen, not bothering to flip on the light since the power was still off, and pulling open the refrigerator while wearing nothing but a pair of high-heeled boots, she didn't show it. She leaned into the refrigerator and began to rummage around, never checking to see if Booth had followed her, confident that even if he hadn't moved yet he was still watching her.

Booth still stood in front of the table staring at his partner, transfixed, as she stood in front of her French door refrigerator, naked as the day she was born except for knee-high red boots. His eyes skimmed over the round curve of her apple-shaped ass and down the length of her long legs, then up again to the small of her back and across her shoulders. He opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again, doubting if anything he could say in that moment would sound anything but absolutely idiotic.

After a minute, she pulled out a couple of bottles of water, a glass bottle of lemonade, and she nudged the refrigerator shut before she quickly opened the freezer door, hissed as the she felt the burst of cold air hit her naked chest, even as she reached inside and hastily pulled out a bag of Reese's Peanut Butter cup singles. Nodding at herself, she turned back to the counter, and retrieved the bottled water and lemonade that she had set there. As she walked by, Booth, she tossed the two bottles of water at him, and gave him a crooked smirk as she said, "Here." She then proceeded to walk past him and towards the direction of her bedroom, barely breaking her stride as she went.

Booth caught the bottles reflexively, holding one in each hand as he watched her saunter by with the same sexy half-grin he'd seen her smile before, the same half-grin that had driven him half-crazy on the night he had almost taken her home with him during their first case. He shook away the memory and, flipping one of the bottles in the air, followed her into the bedroom.

"Bones?" he called after her, his brows knitting as he felt a strangeness at uttering her name. He felt odd, unsure whether any of the names he'd ever called her by in the century and a half he'd apparently known her actually embraced the entirety of the woman who'd just walked by him. She was still Bones, and yet she was still Bren, but in the wake of everything that had just happened to him—to _them_—and everything he now remembered that had happened to them before, neither name really seemed to encompass all of her anymore. He felt his heart swell in his chest at the notion that he could now love her—_all_ of her—fully and openly.

"In here," she called to him. "Follow the smell of the chocolate. It won't lead you wrong."

"Heh," he chuckled, cocking his head to the side at hearing her words. "Ah, right. 'Lead me not unto temptation.' Wait, except, uhh, well―" He paused for a minute and then realized he was already going to be in the confessional with Father Michael for a good long while the next time he went for what he'd just done with her and to her. "Yeah, I guess I'm a bit late on that one," he mumbled to himself. "I've been tempted and I'm pretty damn happy to have finally given into temptations, so fuck that."

"Booth?" Brennan called out in a muffled voice from the bedroom. "Will you quit mumbling and get in here or do I have to come and tackle you out there in the kitchen for round two?"

_Round two? Fuck yes, _Booth said silently to himself. _No less insatiable than she always was. Man, I love her...and thank God, _he thought, shaking his head with a grin as he glanced towards the bedroom. "Coming, dear," he laughed as he walked in the direction to which Brennan had disappeared.

By the time he entered the bedroom, Brennan had managed to kick off one boot and was working on getting the second one free. She'd propped herself up on the edge of the bed, her stash of chocolate and lemonade sitting next to her. The room was still dark, even as the storm outside continued to rage. She gave her remaining boot one last grunt as she yanked it free with a very pleased feeling before she tossed it on the floor next to the bed.

Booth looked around the dark bedroom, and he remembered then being in another bedroom, or bedrooms, in other places, with her, in each case, with the heavy shades drawn tight around the windows to block out the light. He blinked away the memories and turned to look at her, an awkward grin on his face.

She stared at him for a minute and then said, "You've never been in this room before. I mean...well, of course you've been here before, but not like that. I mean...we didn't...before, you know? We never...here. We didn't."

He narrowed his eyes and looked down at his bare feet, then up again at her. "It was always dark," he said vaguely. "I mean, you always kept your bedroom dark, didn't you? I mean, for me, right?"

"Partially," she nodded. "But, partially not...I just hate the goddamn sun. You know I'm not a morning person. Never have been, never will be."

"Huh," he grunted. "Yeah, I know that about you. Were you ever a morning person, or did hanging out all those years with a creature of the night get you out of the habit of rising up and at 'em early?"

"My father once told me I was born exactly at the stroke of midnight," Brennan shrugged. "I don't think I ever changed."

Booth nodded and glanced out the window, momentarily distracted by the thought of her father, Max Keenan, and how his relationship with him was clearly more complex than he had just realized just a few hours before. They had shared the physical affections of one woman—the vampire Helen—and each loved another—Brennan—in his own way, one as a protective father and the other as a lover. The fact that Max, a convicted felon and all-around scofflaw, was warming a cell in federal lockup awaiting trial for the murder of the Deputy Director of the FBI was merely the icing on the cake.

"This is very confusing," Booth said, glancing around the bedroom and then back again at his partner. "Not what we did, I mean." He paused, reaching up to scratch his head. "But, just, it's really confusing. I've got...it's like race-walking through a museum I've been in a half-dozen times before, so all the paintings are familiar, but I was always too lazy to take the audio tour or follow the path in the booklet, so it's all out of order and none of it makes any sense. I don't know what any of it means, Bones. It's just...so fucked up, really. Just...confusing."

Although it was still dark, the room awash in shadow but for the occasional flash of lightning that cracked through her blinds, Brennan could see him hesitating as he leaned against the frame of the bedroom door. She reached into the bag next to her and grabbed one of the Reese's Cups. Holding it in her hand she asked, "Can you see?"

"What?" he coughed. "Oh, yeah. Come on, Bones. I was in the Rangers. We spent half our time out there in the woods doing night ops."

Taking aim, she lobbed the piece of chocolate at him. She watched with a satisfied grin on her face as he caught it in his hand. "Good," she said. "Then, first one's free. You want any more, you're gonna have to come and get them. In bed."

Booth's eyebrows flew up as he unwrapped the familiar orange and brown paper, revealed his treat, and then opened his mouth and took a big bite out of the Reese's Cup. The taste of the chocolate and peanut butter caused another memory to flicker before his eyes, of being in bed with another woman, a much younger one, blond and very slender. _'Why did you never tell me about chocolate and peanut butter?'_ He felt his jaw tense, a black feeling of guilt swirling in his gut as he thought about the time he'd wasted pining for the young Slayer when the better woman—the only woman who he'd ever really loved and who had truly loved him—waited for him to come to his senses. _So much wasted time, _he thought miserably, finally closing his eyes and shaking his head. _Never again_, he vowed. _Never. _ He pressed the memory away, shoving it back deep into the recesses of his mind as he ate the rest of the Reese's Cup in a single bite.

He licked a bit of peanut butter off the back of his teeth and looked over at her. "You into the food in bed thing, Bones?" he asked her. "Or the food and sex thing?"

Brennan paused as she drew her legs up to her chin and she rolled back into a sitting position on the bed. "We were never much for food in bed during sex," she explained. "Too messy. And too...well, let's just say we were more creative than that, I like to think, without needing too many props. But, suffice to say, it's sort of a habit for me to store up some calories after we fell into bed. And, as I recall, you liked it well enough the last time...well, like I said, before...I'm not certain how much you remember, but we were never together here...not at this place. You were only at my apartment...the one I had before I got the loft, that one time, and you got the munchies after sex then. Call me crazy, but I thought some sugar might be a good thing right about now if for no other reason than the type of night we've both had―in more ways than one."

Booth squinted in the dim light and walked over to the bed, climbing up with one knee and hesitating for a moment as he noted the twinkle of laughter in her eyes, then, shaking off the flicker of doubt that still poked at him, climbed all the way onto the bed and stalked over to take his place next to her.

"It's weird," he said as he sidled up next to her, reaching his arm over into the bag of candy and grabbing a handful of the cold chocolate cups before sitting up with his back to the headboard. Unwrapping one of them, he rolled the orange paper wrapper into a tiny ball and tossed it to the floor before bringing the candy to his mouth. "What?" he said with his mouth half full. "I'll pick up later."

Brennan bit back a snicker and reached for the bottle of lemonade. Popping the metal cap off with a twist of her hand, she lifted the glass rim to her lips and said with a chuckle before she drank, "Nothing."

"Mmmm," he murmured, unwrapping another candy and gobbling it quickly before turning his head to the side to look at her. "Lemonade and chocolate?" he asked, scrunching his nose at the idea. "The whole tart and sweet chocolate thing? Hmmm. You probably like those orange chocolates, don't you?"

"No," she said with a shake of her head. "Not really. And, I don't really think of it as cross contaminating tastes since one is consumed as a liquid and one must be chewed since it's a solid. It's not so bad, you know."

Booth reached over and twisted the lid off his bottle of water, then took a long drink. "It just seems kind of weird," he said. "Although, that's probably a bit rich for me to say at the moment, huh? With all the weird shit that's happened to me tonight, it's probably the perfect combo, right?" He groaned, then took another healthy swig of water, crinkling the half-empty plastic bottle in his hand just to hear the sound before he reached for the cap and screwed it back in place.

She again reacted very quickly. She twisted her body, having lowered the glass jar from her lips and set it on the nightstand in one fluid movement before she rolled towards him. Tilting her head, she was a bit more than slightly firm when she pressed her mouth to his. Twisting her tongue as she used it to seek a breach in the defenses of his closed lips, she was forceful in demanding entrance. After a moment, she felt his resistance melt as his lips opened slightly, and she pressed her advantage. Pressing her body against his, she tried to leverage a better position, but was unable to do so from her awkward angle. A small growl of protest escaped her mouth and reverberated against his lips as she kissed him. The sound was followed by a slight grunt on Booth's part as he moved to better accommodate her awkward position.

Booth let his water bottle roll off the side of the bed as he tossed the remaining chocolate cup in the direction of the nightstand and he turned towards Brennan to deepen their kiss. His hands freed, he brought his hands to cup the sides of her face as he felt her tongue twirl against his. A low moan sounded from his chest as he let one of his hands drop to her hip and silently encouraged her to straddle him.

"See?" she mouthed against his ear when they pulled apart for air. "That tastes pretty good, doesn't it?"

"_Nnnnngth_," was his only reply as he leaned in again for another kiss. His lips grasped at hers as he demanded another kiss, letting this one linger between them as he stroked the side of her face with his thumb, pulling away slightly to slow her down before closing the gap again. A mumble fell from his lips in the moment before they covered hers. "Bones, I..."

She murmured into his kiss, letting herself fall into the experience of his embrace the way she hadn't allowed herself to do all night. After a minute, she pulled away, ignoring the small sound of protest from him as he held her lower lip between his for a second before breaking off the kiss entirely, his breaths falling hard as he relished the feeling of her weight on his hips.

She looked down at him, her mouth agape as she tried to the swirl of feelings roiling in her belly into an articulable string of words. "You remember," she whispered, as he pressed towards her. "I know you do. You can't kiss me like that and not expect me to believe you don't remember everything."

Booth pulled away and stared at her, panting for breath. "I...look, it's...I-I," he stammered. "It's hard to explain. I remember a lot of things, but..." His voice trailed off for a moment. "It's like having a huge library of books, thousands and thousands of them, you know, all of which you've read, but they're all out of order. So finding the one you want is...damn near impossible."

Trying to be mindful of where her bullet had grazed his leg earlier, she pressed her knees against his hip bones as she situated herself on top of him. "You're overthinking this, Booth," she breathed. "You're overthinking this too damn much."

"_I'm _overthinking this?" he laughed. "That has to be the first time you've ever accused me of overthinking anything." He bit his lip as he felt her settle in against his tightening groin.

"Well, recently, yeah," Brennan nodded. "Probably." She stopped and twisted her pelvis, grinding against him as she punctuated her words. "I know you know you what this feels like. That you remember it and trust it and want it. That you want me. That you want this. That you want us."

"God, yes," he sighed, wincing a little as he felt her press her weight against his hardening flesh. "Yes, I remember. I remember..." He squeezed his eyes shut as he tried to summon a measure of focus, however fleeting. "I remember taking you, a lot of different ways. In different places. In...different times, I guess. I remember the way you'd call out my name." A tiny growl sounded in his throat as he savored a particular memory of her arching her head back, exposing the long line of graceful neck as she sighed his name at the moment of ecstasy. "My different names. But...there was always one thing that was the same, every time, no matter where or how or when or how long or how many times we did it."

"I'm not talking about the number of times or how we fucked," she grunted, with a sharp shake of her head. "It may've started out like...like that, in the beginning. But...that's...that's not what it is anymore. It's not. Tell me...tell me you know what I'm talking about. Tell me that you remember."

Booth lay there, still as glass despite the way she moved slightly against him. "I remember," he said, his voice low and quiet as he blinked slowly. "I remember, at...at some point..." He hesitated, glancing up as he mentally thumbed through the memories. "I remember realizing, one night really, that this thing between us wasn't just...realizing that you were a part of me. I knew that, obviously, but..." He sighed and shrugged against the bed. "I realized that it was more than just you being a part of me, but also...that I'd lost a part of myself in you. That you and I were no longer two people. I..." He swallowed, remembering being in another apartment, in this same city as he looked out on an all too familiar skyline, with her, as the afternoon sun blazed through her window and warmed their skin. "I remember...that I loved you. I loved you, didn't I?"

She stared at him for a long minute, her eyes lightening to a staticky blue as she said, her voice low, "I can't answer that for certain. I-I...I like to think that you did. But, I can't answer that question for sure." She paused, reached for his hands, lifting one so that she could firmly press her small palms against his and then intertwined her fingers with his. She squeezed them for emphasis and asked, "But, you know...you can answer that question, I think. I can't, but you can. So, you...you have to tell me. That feeling, Booth? I think you can still feel it now because I still do. I think it's still there. Isn't it?"

"Yes," he rasped. "It's still there. I...I feel it, Bones. I..." He remembered sitting in a chair―no, several chairs, in several places, gazing into the same bright, flickering blue eyes―soaking in the feel of being with her and feeling himself made whole again in her presence, just by being with her, after he'd felt himself crushed or shattered by the things he'd experienced. "I feel it," he admitted. "I've felt it for a long time, I think."

Her blue eyes softened as she looked at him and said in a low voice, "You know I love you," she said. "I've told you that already. And, after everything that's happened, I desperately, desperately want to believe that somehow we've managed to come through things so that we're finally here in the same place and at the same time and want the same things."

Brennan pressed her lips together in a firm line as she tried to hold her emotions together. She felt the warmth of his smooth olive skin against hers and swallowed as she remembered the first time she felt his warm, human skin beneath her fingertips, his heart beating in his chest after near two hundred fifty years of laying silent in his chest. The memory of their last night together sent a wave of intense emotion that she'd spent more than three years burying shuddering through her.

"But," she continued solemnly, "if that's not...if I can't have that―if I can't have that with you, you can't...you can't say it, Booth. Because...this, I can't come back from this again. Three and a half years ago, I came the closest I've ever come to wanting to say fuck it and finally put myself out of my misery in five centuries. I can't go through losing you again. I'm not strong enough. I did it once, and I still don't know how I did it then. So, I know...I _know _I can't go through you...us having to leave one another again. So...if you can't...if you can't find someway to forgive me so that we can...well, if we can't, then...don't. Just please...don't say it. Don't say it unless it's for keeps this time."

"Bren," he whispered, his brow furrowing as the syllable left his lips. He felt his throat tighten as her words echoed in his mind. "Before tonight...before it...before it all came back to me...I knew there was something about you...about us...something I couldn't quite put my finger on, but the minute I saw you, I knew...it was like...something lit off inside of me, when I saw you in your lecture that morning, but I didn't know what it was. I felt this pull, though."

He smiled and raised his eyebrows as he looked up at her, his forehead creasing as he spoke with a tangible brightness in his voice.

"I mean, people talk about magnetism and attraction, but the way you made me feel, Bones, that day, and every day after that as I got to know you...again, I guess, though I didn't know it at the time...it was like..." He shook his head, frustrated at his inability to articulate himself. "It was like I felt us getting woven together somehow, drawn together...but I didn't understand it. I didn't know anything but that I felt something very powerful, and I knew that you and I were destined for each other. Fated, you know. But...I felt us draw closer and closer together in that week we worked together on the Gemma Arrington case, and I felt myself falling for you, and then...I...I didn't understand what was happening but I kissed you and...it was liked we'd kissed a thousand times before, though I was sure...I mean, I'd never kissed you before, but..."

She swallowed heavily once and then blinked a few times. "I-I...I'm sorry," she said.

"Why are you sorry?" he asked. "I don't understand."

"Because I don't know whether you're trying to figure out a comforting way to let me down in what's supposed to be as less a traumatic way as possible as you're rejecting me or if you're rambling because you're afraid to say what I want you to tell me because that means we're finally at the same place at the same time," she said fitfully, shaking her head again. "And...well, I-I...I don't know. I'm sorry."

"No, no, no, Bones—listen," he said, reaching up as he untwined one of his hands from hers and gently cupped her jaw in the wide palm of his hand. "What...what I'm trying to say in my totally clumsy and idiotic way...is...I'm trying to tell you that, even before tonight, even before I got nailed by this massive water cannon of memories...that I've loved you for a long, long time, Bones. I mean, after we met again...God, this is confusing...but, you know, even as we were working that first case, I felt like we were kind of...threads in a single tapestry, you know. And when we finally started, you know, being partners, and...I...I-I...it's not just tonight...I love you, Bren. I...I've loved you for a long time now, and I guess what...well, what tonight showed me is that...I'm not crazy, but that...that the way I feel about you, now, today―tonight―is the way I've felt about you for a long, long time...even longer, much longer, really, than I was even aware of before tonight."

He stroked his thumb over the edge of her cheek and tilted his head slightly as he looked deep into her eyes.

"I love you, Bones. I love you."

She gasped a bit, not in surprise, but in obvious relief at his words. Still, a nervous look of uncertainty crossed her brow as she mouthed, "Are you certain?"

He moved his hand away from her jaw and threaded his fingers through her soft, silky hair. "Yeah," he whispered. "As sure as I am of anything, Bones, which granted what's just happened tonight isn't a whole hell of a lot, but yeah. I do. I love you. You're the only constant in my life, and...you're everything to me. You've been that for a long time. Even before tonight. I love you. I've never been more certain of anything."

"You're...ummm...you're sure that you understand what you're saying?" she asked again, her voice hoarse as she stuttered. "Because...I can't...I won't share you. It's...you're...mine. I can't have you...not like we did before. It has to be all or nothing, Booth. Me...just me. Us. Here. I can't...the comings and goings. It has to be...it can't be like it was before. Do you understand?"

"Yes," he said firmly. "You're the only one I want, Bones. The only thing I want. You're it. You're the only one. You're part of me. And, I think, I'm part of you. We're one person, you and me. I...what it was before? It's done. Over. I don't want to go back...to that. I want to be with you, Bones. To be...just you and me, Bones. Just us. I'm yours. Just yours. Yours alone."

"No tricks?" she whispered, her eyes shining. "Really?"

Booth's eyebrows raised as an awkward laugh escaped his lips. "No tricks, Bones," he said. "As God is my witness, I love you."

In that moment, Brennan stared at him for what seemed like a long time. She drew one more breath, letting their joined hands fall to his chest. And, as the heel of her right hand came to rest on his chest, she looked down in surprise, almost as if a part of her brain was suddenly processing the significance of the fact that his skin was warm and she could feel the faint beating of his heart under her hand. She then took another deep breath, and as she exhaled, an unexpected thing started to happen. She began to cry.

Booth leaned forward and, freeing his fingers from the tangle of her hair, brought his hand to brace against the back of her head as he pulled her towards him in an embrace. "Shhhhhh," he whispered. "Shhhh...it's okay, Bones. I'm here, okay? I'm yours, and I'm not goin' anywhere. Shhhhh." He stroked his fingertips gently against the back of her head as he felt her shudder slightly against his shoulder. "I'm here, Bones."

"I-I...I need..." she sobbed against him. "I-I..." Her words trailed off as she pulled away from him and fell back on instinct as she reached for his lips.

"Bones," he whispered against her lips.

"If...if you...if you really...mean it," she breathed. "Show me."

Booth's mouth fell open, but not for the purpose of speaking, but rather to take a sharp breath as he let the hand that had been cupping the back of her head drop to her shoulder. He nodded at her as he rolled slightly to the side and gently pushed her off and away from him. She rolled off of him and laid back against her pillows as he turned around and took his place between her loosely-parted legs. His warm brown eyes narrowed and darkened as a crooked smile curved the edges of his lips, and he leaned into his hands as he bent down to kiss her. She murmured against his kiss and it all went quickly after that as he drew his hips back and came up into her with a swift, smooth stroke. Brennan craned her head back and exposed the full length of her neck to his hungry lips as he drove into her, again and again, each time driving into her harder and faster than the time before. Her lips parted in a long groan as she shattered beneath him just seconds before he, too, broke apart, their bodies bathed in a crackling blue light when he slumped over her as he moaned her name and the last pulses of his release faded into her.

At some point, he rolled away from her. But, as always, like a magnet drawn to steel, she followed him. She had to be careful of how she pressed her body against his side, as she didn't want to jostle his hurt leg. However, twisting a bit so that her head was resting on his shoulder, and his arm came across her back and rested just above the swell of her ass, she yawned a bit.

They lay there for a minute in silence before Brennan reached over and grasped his hand, squeezing it slightly before she turned it over and drew her thumb over the Chinese characters tattooed on the inside of his wrist.

"When did you get this?" she asked vaguely, her voice quiet as she stroked her thumb over the dark, crisp characters.

Booth turned and smiled, kissing her forehead as he sighed at the feel of her fingers, caressing his tattoo. "I got 'em right after I finished Ranger School," he explained. "Went out with a couple of buddies from my Ranger course to celebrate, and we got completely hammered, right? And there was this tattoo parlor right next to the bar we'd been drinking at, and so we all went in. The other two guys got Ranger tabs tattooed on their biceps, but..." He shrugged slightly even as he lay there, cradling her head against his chest. "I saw this book of Chinese words, and was flipping through it while the other guys were getting theirs done, and—"

"Living to die," Brennan said. "_Shan shu."_

Booth arched his eyebrow with surprise. "Yeah," he said with a faint laugh. "How did you know that? I mean, that...how do you know that's what these characters mean?"

She threaded her fingers in his and chuckled. "Booth," she said, "I know the words for 'life,' 'death,' 'skull' and 'bone' in dozens of languages. I've done fieldwork in China. I'd recognized the characters the minute I saw them, the morning we first met at American University, when you extended your hand to shake mine." A smile broke across her face. "I've spent the last century and half learning every inch of your body, Booth. Touching every inch of your skin. Memorizing every muscle and sinew. The vein that runs over the edge of your bicep...here." She touched him there, tracing her finger along the line of his harm and up to his shoulder. "The scars here I love so much," she said, pressing her lips to the rough, pockmarked skin along the edge of his jaw near his ear. "Your wonderful Adam's apple." She drew his finger over it as he swallowed and the protrusion of cartilage bobbed beneath her touch. A soft laugh escaped her lips and she added, "Kissing and licking and sucking every morsel of you." Booth groaned quietly at her words and she squeezed his hand. "So, yes," she admitted. "The moment I saw you—more or less physically the same _you_ you always were, in shape and form, except that you were fully human—I immediately took note of your tattoos."

He brushed his lips across the faint creases in her forehead. "At the time," he said with a certain wistfulness in his low voice, "I wasn't really sure why I picked out that particular tattoo design. I mean, I was a Ranger, you know, and a sniper, and so in a sense, that was my job—living to die, right? So it was kind of appropriate, in a grim kind of way. And part of it, I guess, was that I didn't want to get the same tat as the other guys did, being the free-thinking rogue rebel that I am."

He waggled his eyebrows and laughed at the memory of both the hazy, drunken night he got tattooed and the day he leaned over the balcony at the theater with Brennan during the Gemma Arrington case and talked about his individuality.

"Then again," he said, "maybe part of it was that if those guys had the balls to get one tattoo each, well then I was enough of a bad-ass motherfucker that I was gonna get two, one on the inside of each wrist."

"You're incorrigible," Brennan said. "You really, really are."

Shrugging slightly, he snickered. "Probably," he said. "But I don't know how this all works, or worked, but you gotta admit, it's a pretty friggin' weird coinkydink, huh?"

"When it comes to you, Booth," she said thoughtfully. "I'm not sure I believe in coincidences."

"Mmmm," he murmured, bringing his other hand up and brushing an errant lock of her sweat-damp hair off of her forehead before laying a feather-light kiss there. "After tonight, baby," he whispered. "Me neither."

They were quiet for another minute, before she asked in a quiet voice, "Booth?"

"Hmmm?"

"I've missed this," she said, the honesty in her voice making her sincere vulnerability even more apparent. "I've missed you, and I've missed this. Very, _very_ much."

"Mmmm," he murmured as he turned his head and kissed her sweat-damp forehead. "I have, too," he said. "Hmm...well...actually, it's very odd. I feel like I've missed this, and have been waiting for years have this because I've never had it. It's..." He shrugged a little and laughed. "It's all very confusing. But I love this. And I _have_ missed it. And, well, I hope to have it again. As often as I can." He turned to her and grinned.

"It's always been yours," she said. "Always." She stopped, rubbing her top lip over her extended bottom one as she chewed on it for a minute before she asked hesitantly, "Promise me something?"

"Anything," he replied quickly. "Anything, Bones."

"In the morning...if we fall asleep...promise me you'll still be here," she said. "No...no leaving. Not ever again."

Booth pressed his lips together and nodded. "Never again," he said. "I'll be here, okay? I'm not goin' anywhere. No leaving, Bones. Not you, not me. We're in this for keeps, mmm?" He paused, then laughed softly.

He lay there for a few moments, stroking her soft auburn hair mindlessly before turning his head once more towards her. "Hey, Bren?"

"Yes?"

"In the morning," he said. "I want you to come with me to go see Father Keyes at Holy Trinity. I wanna say my vows to you."

She sat up slightly, her hand still not moving from where it had rested on his chest as they talked. She leveled a firm stare at him and asked, "Are you...certain?"

"Yep," he said, snaking his arm around her waist and pulling her more tightly against him. "After all that we've been through, Bren, I'm not lettin' you go. Never again. This is it. And I'm gonna see to it that we're never apart again." He hugged her more tightly against his chest and pressed a soft kiss to her forehead. "You've done plenty of unilateral things, you know—tonight, and before—and, it all turned out alright in the end, even if it made for a pretty miserable go for us in the meantime. So look, I understand why you did what you did, and I forgive you for it, okay, but we aren't doing that again. As a matter of fact, I'm gonna do whatever I have to do to make certain we are never separated again even if that means I'm gonna be the one to be unilateral for once, Bones." He turned his head and grinned at her. "You said you wanted this to be for keeps," he said. "So, I'm gonna show you I'm a man of my word, and I want you to make an honest man out of me. We're gonna make this thing formal, once and for all...I'm never, _ever _letting you go, Bren."

Surprise clearly writ all over her face, Brennan finally managed to ask, "Booth, are you certain?"

He nodded simply. "It'll take some doing, but―wait," he cut himself off. He then gave her a small, sheepish smile as he said, "You know what I'm talking about, right? That we're not talkin' about holy orders or anything, yeah?"

Brennan gave him a strange look and then said, "Why on earth would you ever take holy orders? We've...uhhh...we've talked about this before, you know. It wasn't a good fit then, and I can sure as hell say it's an even worse fit now."

"Nope," he said. "You're right. I'd make a crappy monk. But I'm gonna make a great husband, and you're gonna make a terrific wife, and we're going to have an awesome, _awesome _family."

Booth felt Brennan's muscles tense as he held her against his chest, his arm draped over the curve of her hip. He stroked his hand over the round of her hip, smiling faintly as his palm dragged slightly over her skin which was still tacky with her sweat from their lovemaking.

"Bren," he said quietly after a minute. "You're not..." He paused, his own heart racing as he felt a certain vague dread at the thought of her refusing him. "I mean, I thought you wanted...that we'd decided after tonight that we'd be together, finally, right? I mean...us, in the same time, same place...for keeps, right? That's...we still want that, don't we, Bones?"

Brennan was quiet for a minute and then said, "Of course, we still want that, Booth. _I _still want that...it's just that―" Her voice trailed off as it cracked slightly as she spoke. "It's just that, well...I never thought that I would ever really get married. I mean, I've been alive for almost five hundred years, and never once has someone loved me enough long enough to want to be with me and to stay with me and to make a family and—"

"And―" he prodded her gently. "This isn't your way of trying to tell me that you're not the marrying kind, after all of this...is it?"

"No," she replied firmly. "That's not what I'm saying. It's just that, but for my parents' marriage, I have never really had a chance to see a couple successfully engage in such a type of relationship over a sustained period of time. I just...I-I don't know what I'm doing here. I have no frame of reference, no bearing on what I'll be doing. And, well―" Her voice trailed off again before she sighed and then looked him directly in the eyes and continued, "I don't want to hurt you again if I make another mistake because I don't know what I'm doing. After all the pain you've suffered because of me, it's the last thing I want to do, but I'm...well, I'm scared, Booth."

Booth stared at Brennan for a long minute. The look was a mixture of hope, fear, and several other emotions that Brennan knew she recognized even if she couldn't name them in the tumultuous nature of the moment. Finally, he said, "Look, Bones. I know you're scared. Hell, so am I. But that's no reason why we should let us hold ourselves back anymore. So if you being afraid is the only thing that is keeping you from saying yes to being my wife, then fuck it. We can get over anything, baby. You just gotta trust me. But," he chewed his lip a minute before he said, his voice a tad glum, "If you don't want to marry me because of some other reason...because you don't love me or you don't, well, want to be with me―"

A look of comprehension dawned on Brennan's face as she suddenly realized what Booth was trying to say to her. At last, she cut him off sharply―probably more sharply than she'd initially intended―but knowing she needed to get his attention, she felt no regrets as she spoke. "Booth," Brennan said sharply. "Will you hush, just for a moment?"

Booth's brow furrowed as he opened his mouth in a surprised o-shape as he got ready to respond. However, with a small smile, she shook her head as she cut him off once more.

"You know, if you'd pipe down for a half a minute, you'd probably get the answer you want," she told him with a small roll of her eyes, particularly when she saw Booth's soft brown eyes light up in happiness. Shaking her head, she half-muttered, "It's good to know that Angelus' big mouth didn't vanish into oblivion when you got your _shanshu_ and your humanity back."

"Sorry," he grumbled sheepishly as he tried to swallow a huge grin. "Go on."

She shook her head slightly as it still lay against his chest, then continued. "It's just...when you live as long as I do, you don't expect to do the things that normal, shorter-lived people do. And I guess I never expected to ever marry, even as a young woman. I never thought I'd ever have to deal with the idea of having a husband...especially after I fell in with you, and with the way things were between us over the years, even as I came to love you, very much, it still seemed like a normal life, where I could live with the man I loved as his wife—that all seemed beyond attainment for so long that―well, although I'm not against the idea, it just seems strange to even consider it now, and I just needed a minute."

Booth narrowed his eyes and turned his head, pressing his lips to her forehead as he gently squeezed her naked hip in his big hand. "So, then, by my count since you've been rambling for over a minute there, is that a yes, Dr. Brennan?" he asked with a snicker. "Because I'm not quite sure, but it sort of sounded like one in a ass-backward sort of way. "

Grinning a happy lop-sidded grin at him she said, "A.) I'm going to smack you very hard in a minute and B.) do I need to break it down into teeny tiny words for you, Booth?"

A wide, toothy grin split his face. "Yeah, Bren," he said. Pausing for a beat, he waggled his brows and asked, "I think you do. So what'll it be, lass?"

Shaking her head with a smirk, she muttered, "It's a yes, smartass. Yes, okay?"

Booth's face lit up again, his warm eyes widening as he smiled from ear to ear at hearing her say it. His heart began to pound in his chest as the reality of it came together in his mind.

"I think I can talk Father Keyes into squeezing us in right after the All Saint's mass, in the rectory," he said, the words coming quickly as if he was afraid she'd change her mind. "It won't be a nuptial mass or even the sacrament. But he can still marry us civilly if I can call in a favor for the license. We can grab breakfast on the way back."

Brennan considered his offer and then said, "We're going to have to turn off all our cells. Unplug the landlines. Computers, too."

"Bren," he said. "The last damn thing I wanna hear after I hear you say 'I do' is a friggin' cell phone. You can take that to the bank."

"We'll get a case," she said. "We always get a case."

"Nuh-uh," Booth said. "We're calling in tomorrow. Let some other flunkie at the Bureau handle things for a couple of days. The squints can keep 'em in line."

"If we call in, they'll ask why," Brennan said. "Someone will know something's up. And then Angela's gonna be pounding on my door, and unless I put a repulsing spell on it to keep people away, I'm telling you, the only way this is going to work is if we shut off everything."

"Total media blackout," he agreed. "We send two emails, one to the AD for me and one to Cam for you, and then we're done. We're doing what we gotta do to get to where we need to go which is, in case you're wondering, some quality alone time for us. So if you need to work some magic to keep prying eyes or snooping snoots away, as long as you don't make a habit of it, I say you do what you gotta do."

He bit back a smile at the thought that he—a former magic-hating vampire—had just given his witch-scientist partner, and soon-to-be wife, blanket permission to use magic.

"That's right," he said with a hint of smugness. "Because tomorrow, you and me are gettin' married, and then we're comin' back here, and we're not coming up for friggin' air until the clock strikes midnight on the day after All Soul's."

"I want that in writing," she said. "Signed and notarized," she added with a straight face. "And, I want something better for breakfast than diner take out―because we can't take the chance someone will see us―and I don't want one of those loaded up caloric monstrosities that you love from McDonalds or Burger King. That doesn't count as breakfast."

Booth snapped his fingers. "I can't promise it won't be loaded with calories," he grinned, "but there's a great taqueria that opened up that serves the best damn breakfast tacos and burritos, including ones without meat, this side of the Red River. It's the real deal, Bren. You can wire money to Mexico from the restaurant. If that ain't authentic, I don't know what is. And nobody from the Bureau, and nobody from the Jeffersonian will ever find us there."

She looked at him for another minute, smiled, and then said, "Done."

"You're stuck with me whether you like it or not," he told her. "You'll see."

"That's okay with me," she told him. "Just so long as you know that I may not always like you," she said truthfully. "But, I'll always love you. Because I always have, and I always will."

Booth closed one eye and looked at her. "I'll try to be likable," he quipped. "But...you know I've always loved you, and, until the day I draw my last breath, I'll love you. Forever, baby."

For the first time in some while, she lifted her head and gave him a strange look as she arched an eyebrow at him in what seemed, to him, to be clear annoyance.

"What?" he snorted, licking his lips teasingly as his eyes flickered with laughter.

"I don't like that one," she said simply.

Booth shot her a puzzled look for a few seconds then took a breath and smirked. "Oh," he said. "You want me to pick a different term of endearment off the menu, huh?"

She narrowed her eyes at him and then repeated, "I don't like that one."

"Hmmmm," he said. "Sweetheart?"

"Better," she said. "If you feel you must...I suppose."

Booth held the tip of his tongue between his lips for a moment as he looked up at the ceiling thoughtfully. "I was gonna go with darling, but I'm thinking that's a no-go, too," he chuckled when he saw, as he expected, a flash of blue brighten her already pale eyes.

"_Do not call me 'Bones'," she'd snapped at him as the young Asian FBI tech approached them._

He couldn't help but smirk at how he'd kept calling her Bones despite her protests. A year later, he'd finally been forced to play his federal trump card and have Homeland Security pull her aside after clearing customs at Dulles on her way back from Guatemala.

_He walked into the room and felt the hairs on the back of his neck prick up the second his eyes met hers. _

"_What are you doing here?" she asked him, her voice tense with something more than annoyance._

"_FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth, Major Crime Investigation, D.C.," he said to the Homeland Security officer. "Bones identifies bodies for us."_

"_Don't call me Bones," she said. "And I do more than identify."_

It was only by way of some kind of major miracle, Booth remembered, that he'd managed to keep her in the Tahoe and talking to him long enough to coax her back into working with him. He nibbled the inside of his lip and bit back at smile at the sudden realization as to the real reason she'd bolted at the end of the Gemma Arrington case and had shut him out, ignoring every call, text and email he'd sent her way over the next year. It wasn't that she didn't like him, he now understood. It was that she loved him, and she didn't think she was ready to work by his side each day, in close proximity to him, at that point given how strong her attachment and feelings for him were..

Booth wondered if the real reason she'd protested the nickname he'd given her was that, somewhere deep down, it wasn't what she really wanted to hear him call her. Rolling the thought over in his head a few times, after a minute, satisfied that he was right, he shot her another sly grin and said, "How about...well...hmmm...possibly..." He hesitated before he continued. "Lass?" His brown eyes flickered with barely-suppressed laughter. "Mmmm?"

"If it's important to you," she said, as she tried to keep her face devoid of emotion.

"You're such a little liar," he whispered into her soft, gently tangled hair. "You love it when I call you 'lass,' don't you? You always have."

"I never said that," she said, her voice wavering a bit as she answered.

"You don't need to," he snickered. "I've known for a hundred fifty years that you like it when I call you lass." He grinned. "You're just a little outta practice. But we'll take care of that, huh?"

She turned her head and stared up at him for a minute, then asked, "What'd you have in mind?"

Booth brought his hand up and stroked his chin. "Hmmm," he said teasingly. "I don't know. Maybe a nap, then...hmmm...maybe we can bake an apple pie...and...wait―did you have something else in mind, lass?"

"No," she said quickly. "If you want to help me in the kitchen later, since you are gonna have to help me disinfect the table anyway, I'm sure I could manage to conjure up some type of confection for your sweet tooth. A pie...if you like. Or, maybe a tart, if you'd prefer it."

"Pie," he blurted out. "As much as I used to like a tart from time to time in my younger days, I think I've refined my tastes over the years. So, I'll go with the pie. A nice apple pie can be tart enough if done right. But..." He rolled onto his side. "Right now, I have another confection in mind, mmm?"

Her eyes widened a bit as she took his meaning. "Seriously?"

Booth arched an eyebrow. "Hmmm...lemme think about it." After a half-beat of silence, he said, "Yep, definitely." And with that, he rolled her over onto her back with a room-filling laugh.

* * *

**~The End~**

* * *

**A/N2- **And, there you have it ladies and gents. ::pause:: Egad! But that was a long one. So, now that #7 of the nine-part cycle is in the can, we have #8 well on the horizon. Angel(us) is now Booth...and knows it...and plans to lock Bren down. All seems well for our beloved dynamic duo...right? Well, we are proud to report #8 of the cycle "A Would-be Reunion" is already written in it's entirety. #Dharmasera just needs to edit it, so it should be posting soon. By way of preview, the story is firmly rooted in Bones Season 4 (albeit AU chronology to fit our world). There will be less flashbacks (for better or worse although we won't say that we won't sneak one or two short ones in their on you all) and more character interactions. Wondering who will be back? Why, yes...I think that not only are Angela, Max, and Spike (to name a few) in the on-deck circle, but a few more Angel-verse and Bones-verse characters will be making an appearance or two. Sound interesting? Then, please, as ever, let us know...not only what you think of future plans, but also what you thought of how we've finally merged the two worlds. Once again, we can't express how much we appreciate everyone's support in this epic storyline. Thanks for reading and see you in the funny papers!


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